A Ground Hog Day New Year

Happy New Year. One feels apologetic after addressing someone with that greeting, now needing to qualify it, saying this New Year has to be better than the last.  In the spirit of self analysis, or criticism, I once again look at my writings over the past years.  I’ve always said that writing this blog is not an act of self promotion, there is no advertising, no dialogue invitation (other than my email address if one wants to write me).  It is an exercise in accountability and remembrance.  I’ve joked with friends that it provides an alternative memory bank, particularly when it comes to books, cultural events, and travel destinations, the details of which are too easily forgotten as time inextricably moves on.  

We all have our opinions and our passions.  For nearly 15 years I’ve guardedly worn my heart and mind on my sleeve, and while looking back there are things I regret saying, but for the most part I’m satisfied.  Sometimes, I’ve even been prophetic, and now I’m alarmed by some of the things I write and think, those going to a dark, dark place.  Perhaps that direction is to be expected as I age, and feel its physical and psychological impact. 

However, most of all I fear that the “American Experiment” is beginning to look like the creation of Victor Frankenstein as we slip from democracy, to anacrocy, to oligarchy, destination autocracy.  We have abandoned the concept of “the common good” and are in a civil war, the polarization of just about every major issue.  This has been mostly played out in a grand political charade but incidents such as Charlottesville, and the attack on Congress last January 6 foreshadows where this might go as a hot war.  The proliferation of guns almost ensures some kind of armed conflict, most likely that very kind of guerrilla warfare.

We can’t even see eye to eye about COVID, extremists exploiting the issue as one of individual freedom.  I have written about this and our ex-President; the thought of his being the leader of our country could have been the punch line of a joke not very long ago.  His popular support ironically is not what he’s done for his followers but instead his giving voice to his follower’s hatred of the virtues of where we thought we were moving, into a more tolerant, ethnically diverse, educated society. 

It is bad enough if we only had to be concerned about the Trumpublicans mastery of propaganda and Gaslighting.  The liberal press writes much about the evils of Gerrymandering and I agree.  But, worse than Gerrymandering is the recent attempts to appoint local election officials, or representatives to the out dated, unnecessary, democracy-threatening Electoral College who are “sympathetic” to Trumpublican causes.

This sets up the real possibility that fair elections can be overturned as being illegitimate.  Then we will be a banana republic.  If election fraud does not work there are always guns.  Is it no wonder I am in a dark place?

At least a cultural light was on in this blog for a long time, but with COVID, many of the theatre and the musical performances which we used to attend in the past, and I enthusiastically wrote about, have been discontinued or migrated to Zoom (not the same).

My reading life has been disrupted by the chaos of our times and although I still try to escape in reading, I find myself less motivated to write about what I read.   Similarly, the piano: still working on improving my skills, but writing about it right now is a different matter.  (Stephen Sondheim’s death in 2021 was a shock and I will write about Sondheim eventually; what he has meant to me musically and personally).

Travel has been shut down, or dangerous, as the civil war plays out, the unvaccinated, the unmasked, claiming their “freedom” transcends everyone else’s. Thus trips I might have written about are no longer to be experienced.

As a society we’ve politicized everything and consequently progress with managing COVID has been disrupted. Years ago we were able to eliminate most smoking in public places which is clearly a danger to the non-smoker, but that took decades for “freedom-loving” smokers to accept, and the Covid issue is even more volatile and equally consequential. 

They accept the licensing of motor vehicles, but not of guns, again equally dangerous if in the wrong hands, or being military grade. I have written more than 30 entries over the years on the need for sensible control of automatic weapons, and covering incidents such as the recent Kyle Rittenhouse murders as examples of the consequences of no congressional action.  Even since the horror of murders of children at Sandy Hook in Newtown, CT, now almost ten years ago, we’ve done nothing other than recite the hollow words, “thoughts and prayers.”

It’s open shooting season on the soil of our once sacred nation, each and every one of them intolerable, destroying spirit.  I’ve written to our so called elected representatives who answer with form letters or emails extolling “freedom and the sacredness of the 2^nd amendment” as if it was handed down from heaven.

I am getting to my point.  Every year I seem to write less.  The definition of “banging one’s head against the wall” is “to attempt continuously and fruitlessly to accomplish some task or achieve some goal that is or seems ultimately hopeless.”  Yes that is where I am at with “freedom lovers” be they of guns, ignoring science, pursuing conspiracy theories, or undermining the very essence of our laws.

Ah, laws.  Another bête noire.  Here we are at the 1^st anniversary of one of the ugliest days in American history, and our Justice System moves in glacial slow motion.  Of course we must be thorough, but at the expense of never bringing the masterminds who are responsible to Justice? 

When I wrote my 100^th entry in this blog I posted a playful entry “How is my driving?”  Now that I;m posting my 726^th entry, I no longer ask that question.  A better one would be, “why am I driving?” I am struck by my first entry from last year ironically beginning “Could we have a worse start to a year that follows the worst year in memory?”  Talk about déjà vous.  I include that entry below as the same themes reverberate:

Saturday, January 9, 2021

The Revoltingly Horrid Year Continues….

 

Could we have a worse start to a year that follows the worst year in memory?

 

A quote President unquote, whose name I cannot even speak, continues behaving like an unhinged mobster boss.  His attempts to coerce the Georgia Secretary of State to throw their lawful election is just one more manifestation of his never-ending quest not to be labeled a loser, which he is and has always been.  His behavior then was criminal, impeachable.

 

But wait, that has been forgotten now as this deranged man stood safely behind a bullet proof shield and urged his slavish rabble to storm Congress just as it was ratifying the Electoral College Vote to name Joseph Biden the next President.  He yelled, Stop the Steal!  He promised he’ll be there with them every step along the way.  He didn’t clarify that he meant that metaphorically, as neither he nor his followers know the meaning of the word.  Instead he retired to the security of his White House Media Room with family members and sycophants to enjoy the siege of his insurrectionists in what we would consider a coup attempt if we were watching a 3rd world government.  It was like a Super Bowl party to them as they watched his minions do his dirty work.

 

Criminal, inciting sedition.  This by a sitting President.  Unthinkable.  Punishable, impeachable,

 

So his job of demolishing the last vestiges of democracy and decency is complete.  He is a deluded anarchist and by pandering to that base he has created a populist persona with a dedicated following, ready to die for him.  It could have been a greater loss of life during the siege had those pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails been detonated.  Perhaps the deep rumble of explosions and their accompanying terrifying bright lights was what he was waiting for.

 

We’ve all seen this coming and with every despicable act we (and many elected representatives) have given him more and more latitude.  After all it has been reasoned, he doesn’t understand the consequences.  He doesn’t understand how government really works….

 

How easily the behavior of one tragically flawed person can obfuscate so many serious issues which are tossed by the wayside, the pandemic and distribution of the vaccines, the climate, racial issues, gun control, voter suppression, and a national debt from which the nation might not recover.  Meanwhile Bitcoins and the stock market rage on while the nation burns, and we wake up each morning, fearing the next disaster du jour.

 

Good riddance to our Mobster President who, unfortunately, will still be part of the cancer that erodes our society from within, no matter the degree of his exile.  Mar a Lago may be his Elba.

 

 

 

 

Our Short-Term National Memory

To illustrate the topic of this entry, only about a month ago the worry was the end of the financial world as Congress was playing political brinkmanship with the National Debt ceiling.  After circling the wagon train, preparing for the worst, hark, the sound of the cavalry bugles at the last minute, Congress agreeing to raise debt levels, extending the issue “all the way” to December 3.  Meanwhile, the financial markets resumed its steady march to the heavens, particularly as the Federal Reserve is between a rock and a hard place, not wanting to raise rates. Clearly, the Treasury cannot afford to pay more interest on the steadily mounting debt.  Short term memory: everyone has conveniently forgotten December 3.  Soon it will be headline material again, a hot potato political issue.

Meanwhile, the Trumpublicans are pleased about the recent elections, demonstrating that their lord and master showman’s prestidigitatorial gas lighting can still opiate the American mind.  Simple formula, tar all Democratic candidates as “socialists” or associate them with the big bad wolf (Critical Race Theory, something most Trumpublicans cannot explain), and equate any reasonable COVID policy with a “loss of freedom.” Nice little sound bites for somnambulistic sheep.  However, no doubt their obedience has been nurtured by the intransigence of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

The most serious reminder of our short-term national memory, however, is the upcoming (only two more months) one year anniversary of the most serious domestic attack on our native soil since the Civil War, the January 6^th insurrection.

We all watched it.  Our elected representatives experienced it.  We have the evidence how it was masterminded, what the end game plan was, and several Senators and Congress people who decried it during the immediate following days, now have all conveniently whitewashed it and have allowed the architects of that horrible day, unfettered by consequences, to do it again, perhaps now more “legally” given voting law changes in Republican states, redistricting, appointments of State Election Commissioners who will do what they are told as well as conservative judges at the local levels of Government.

Imagine if this attack was orchestrated by the Duchey of Grand Fenwick – we’d be bombing the hell out of them.

Why our Justice Department cannot swiftly act on this matter defies understanding.  Are our political system and the American psyche so poisoned?  Even our 4^th Estate seems to have left the scene of the crime.  The montage of headlines the day after this egregious breach of democracy was filled with outrage.  Where is it now? 

 

Hall of Mirrors

 

When the Internet is used as an instrument of “affirmation, repetition, and contagion,” it is deadly to promote an alternate reality in its hall of mirrors. 

 After Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Trump’s culpability seemed abundantly clear.  During momentary “weakness” even political insiders who had publicly supported Trump such as Mitch McConnell expressed that view.  But that was then.  Since, the pro-Trump propaganda machine has kept its shoulder to the wheel and behold, today most Republicans still believe the election was “stolen,” and at least half believe that Trump bears no responsibility for the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Also since then Republican State legislators have gone to work, to “make elections fair” and to “stop voter fraud.”  Indeed, this disenfranchises minorities which would seem to be the major issue.    As important, it gives subliminal credence to the unfounded claim of voter fraud and a kind of legitimacy to Jan. 6, at least in the minds of the True Believers,

How can this be when our very own eyes and all evidence refute both points? 

I have referenced before the pioneering work of Gustave Le Bon and his 1895 classic The Crowd; A Study of the Popular Mind.  I read this in college and never forgot it. I still have my old paperback edition, with all my original notes and underlinings; strange to look through it some sixty years later in an effort to understand today.

This was written even before radio.  I can only imagine what Le Bon would say about the Internet, other that it merely magnifies the ease in which an obvious falsehood can seize the popular mind, an alternate reality taking on the trappings of the truth.  Read the words of this man talking to us from 1895 and decide for yourself how these beliefs can possibly be. 

This is an excerpt from Le Bon’s work with some passages truncated just to get to the heart of the matter:

When…it is proposed to imbue the mind of a crowd with ideas and beliefs…the leaders have recourse to different expedients. The principal of them are three in number and clearly defined--affirmation, repetition, and contagion. Their action is somewhat slow, but its effects, once produced, are very lasting.

Affirmation pure and simple, kept free of all reasoning and all proof, is one of the surest means of making an idea enter the mind of crowds. The conciser an affirmation is, the more destitute of every appearance of proof and demonstration, the more weight it carries….

Affirmation, however, has no real influence unless it be constantly repeated, and so far as possible in the same terms. It was Napoleon, I believe, who said that there is only one figure in rhetoric of serious importance, namely, repetition. The thing affirmed comes by repetition to fix itself in the mind in such a way that it is accepted in the end as a demonstrated truth.

The influence of repetition on crowds is comprehensible when the power is seen which it exercises on the most enlightened minds. This power is due to the fact that the repeated statement is embedded in the long run in those profound regions of our unconscious selves in which the motives of our actions are forged. At the end of a certain time we have forgotten who is the author of the repeated assertion, and we finish by believing it….

When an affirmation has been sufficiently repeated and there is unanimity in this repetition...what is called a current of opinion is formed and the powerful mechanism of contagion intervenes. Ideas, sentiments, emotions, and beliefs possess in crowds a contagious power as intense as that of microbes….Contagion is so powerful that it forces upon individuals not only certain opinions, but certain modes of feeling as well….The opinions and beliefs of crowds are specially propagated by contagion, but never by reasoning...

THE Election

“The” is all in caps intentionally.  Yes, it was razor thin in the swing states, but a 4 million plus popular vote plurality demonstrates that the American people made a choice to remove Trump from the Presidency.  His illegitimate claims the election was “stolen” from him is belied by the fact that Republicans actually made headway in reclaiming some House seats and as of now haven’t lost the Senate.  The message is clear:  Republicans showed up to vote but many decided enough is enough as far as Trump’s behavior is concerned, with the commensurate loss of America’s reputation among our allies throughout the world.  The pandemic certainly fed into the lateness of the count, so many people wisely choosing to vote by mail, but that does not involve “stealing” the election – it gave more Americans the opportunity to safely vote, under the umbrella of each state’s Supervisor of Elections, ballots being counted by teams of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.   And that’s what it is all about: the voice of the people. 

What struck me the most about Joe Biden’s speech last night was its Presidential tone, both in content and delivery.  Yes, it came off a teleprompter, but Trump’s speeches, with few exceptions, even with a teleprompter, veer off into a fantasy land and sound like a third grader speaking, using Hollywood adjectives over and over.  Four years of having to listen to that level of speaking, not to mention his Tweets, has inured us to the true power of the English language, and no doubt left us the laughingstock of the English-speaking world.  Even foreign leaders who use English as a second language are more coherent. 

Biden’s message of governing on behalf of ALL the people was conciliatory.  One can only hope that Trump’s supporters will give him a chance.  Most of all, we should all look forward to joining the world community again, to battle climate change, the pandemic, and in general to allow science rather than conspiratorial fantasies lead us into the future.   We’ve allowed the needle of nationalism to tip into the territory of isolationism.  We’ve precariously allowed democracy to teeter into despotism.  I will give the Trump administration some credit for exposing the extreme to which we allowed the concept of globalization to expose our vulnerability to critical elements in our society – case in point, personal protective equipment.  Some manufacturing must be brought back here.

If we (my wife Ann and I) were not in the middle of a move, the disassembling of twenty years of our lives and trying to put “things” back together I would be able to spend more time on describing my feelings and elation at this important moment in our history.   One of the benefits of writing a blog such as this over such a long period of time is that it allows me to look back and understand my feelings and thoughts during these pivotal points in our history.  On the eve of President Obama’s inauguration after his election in 2008 (can it be, 12 years ago?) I wrote this piece.

It reminded me that he was facing the most significant economic crisis since the Great Depression.  Although one may argue that wrong turns were made at times, under his (and Joe Biden’s) leadership, we survived that crisis and Trump inherited a booming economy (although he will never admit it).  Now, Joe Biden, and our first VP-Elect who is a woman of color (another remarkable step forward for this nation) Kamala Harris, must confront a pandemic which is equal to or even greater than the economic crisis of 2008.  Science must be followed, and we can’t rely on a single Hail Mary pass of a vaccination.  I am confident that this will be their immediate mission, besides rejoining the world community.  As I felt when Obama was elected, there is hope.  Hope is a mighty word  

I’ve written enough Trump pieces to fill a book and last year it was published (Waiting for Someone to Explain It: The Rise of Contempt and Decline of Sense).

After Trump’s inauguration, I wrote although I had severe reservations that he would ever preserve the dignity of the Office of the Presidency (after all, it was his avowed objective to “drain the swamp,” ironically more of his advisors having to be fired, or imprisoned than any administration in history), I concluded by saying  “I hope President Trump transcends all these concerns.” 

Perhaps this was disingenuous, never expecting it, and indeed, getting a worse President than the candidate himself. I truly had expectations the Office might change the man.  It did not from the start.  His first Cabinet meeting, where his members lavished praise on him was one of the most uncomfortable moments I’ve ever witnessed in government.  I’m afraid it set the tone for what would follow for the next four years and of course, most of those supplicants are no longer there.

I ended my Obama piece quoting the entire poem I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman.  I am now again hopeful as Langston Hughes wrote in his 1935 poem Let America be America Again.  We have made progress since then despite the last four dark years.  The last stanza of his poem echoes what the American people have just said with their precious vote:

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!

 

Swimming Towards The Light

Looking over my last four years of writing I note the gathering dyspeptic tone.  If I had to draw a graph of it there would be a steady downward “tone” line with a sharp descending drop at the onset of the pandemic.  Before that point, there was still theatre, music, literature, and travel to think about, enjoy and write about, a distraction from the Anvil Chorus of Trumpian Transgressions.

This is not my first self-assessment.  A few weeks ago I wrote “We are all in survival mode now.  "This has all sorts of practical ramifications and seems to rob us of other activities.  For instance, my reading of fiction, for which there should be more time during this pandemic, is nearly impossible as existential dread has supplanted my patience. “

That “existential dread” was one of the reasons I couldn’t bear to watch the virtual Democratic National Convention these past few days.  I feared the Democrats would do something spectacularly dumb to jeopardize our one and only chance to remove a spectacularly amoral, non-presidential person from office who lost the popular vote by 3 million four years ago, but managed to inveigle his way into office via collusion and the outdated Electoral College.

As Tyler Elliot Bettilyon explains in Are You Suffering From Existential Dread? I obviously have AED (Acute Existential Dread), “an intense feeling of inconsequentiality triggered by external stimuli.” 

There is enough anxiety in our lives now, a deadly cocktail of environmental degradation, racial inequality, pandemic and healthcare hazards, main street economic woes, Internet facilitated conspiracy groups, militant supporters of a mostly unregulated 2^nd amendment, and the decline of American participation in world cooperation, to indeed trigger AED.  When you add Trump’s vitriol to the equation, it is exponential.

Joe Biden had my vote a long time ago.  Anyone from the Democratic Party would have had my vote.  AED indeed blocked my watching most of the DNC, fearful that we might unintentionally alienate voters we need to show up in the swing states.  But, the last night of the convention, I felt it I wanted to see Biden’s acceptance speech, watching it as I would the 7^th game of the World Series, bottom of the 9^th, bases loaded for my team, one run down, and one out.  Any baseball fan now understands the depth of my AED.

First, I saw 13-year-old Brayden Harrington who met Biden on the campaign trail and talked to him about his stuttering.  Brayden, when you bravely took the virtual stage and said "He told me that we were members of the same club: We stutter,” my hopes were raised for Biden’s subsequent speech.

Biden's speech was the pinnacle of his political lifetime, and ours as we are all struggling, swimming in the muck towards the light.  My AED will never be gone until the swampster-in-chief, along with his criminal cronies, are gone, gone, gone.  But after Biden’s speech, particularly its tone of inclusiveness, there is hopefulness.  I really believe, for the first time in four years, that there is a chance to address the fundamental existential threats to our way of life and life itself.  Maybe indeed we can make America great again.

Unfortunately, we see how Trump is setting this up, undermining the Post Office and already questioning the legitimacy of the election, preparing to challenge the results, no matter what they are.  The more he can make this close and the longer the final tally can be delayed, the higher the probability he can throw the results into a chaotic challenge.  This will not be like the disputed Gore –Bush 2000 contest, where the Supreme Court made the decision and it was accepted by Gore (who really did win).  No, Trump might undermine this for weeks afterwards, trying to throw it into the House of Representatives where each state gets one vote (even through there are more Democratic Representatives, there are more states with a majority of Republican Representatives and therefore their one vote counts disproportionately).

I don’t know how they (the Republicans) always seem to have an unfair advantage, but it is even more reason why Democratic turnout MUST be massive and there can be no question of the results, although they will still be challenged by Trump.  We might all have to go to DC with pitchforks to remove him.  Ah, that’s my AED speaking again.