What I Learned At The DC March For Our Lives

From the shadow of the Capitol Dome to the edge of the White House grounds, some 500,000 protestors packed into Pennsylvania Avenue, "America's Main Street", as part of the March For Our Lives worldwide event which attracted 2 million participants in over 800 marches. In DC, it was nearly a full mile of First Amendment expressions against Second Amendment abuse, and it was glorious.

The Daily Kibitz was there, and this is our "field report" of how it went down. (You can even try to see us in the photo above - we are to the right of the second white van by about 10 feet. Yes, we are holding up signs... that will certainly distinguish us.)

We arrived early and thought the rally would be a bust, because the Metro wasn't swamped the way it was with The Women's March of 2017. But as we settled in and waited, the avenue steadily filled. By the time the event began, it was Women's March worthy.

Except this one was exceptionally well produced. Volunteers were everywhere to help. Police and paramedics presented in abundance for safety. Access ways for ambulances to help all along the route were well designed (this was a serious flaw in 2017). Loudspeaker systems projected along the route AND out to cross-areas where crowds could not see the stage. 20 jumbotrons set up all along the way.

But the most striking difference with previous events was the overall quality of speakers and the well-paced story arc they represented. They were all students. Some were from Stoneman Douglas High School - the leaders of this event. But most were from Chicago, DC, Los Angeles, New York... and Newtown. It was an outstanding example of the Intersectionality of young American gun violence victims: suburban, urban, white, black, latino, male and female. And their stories were relentlessly compelling.

"I learned how to duck bullets before I learned how to read," declared Edna Chavez of Los Angeles. Telling her story of living with fear, of her murdered brother Ricardo... and the giant crowd chanting his name. Powerful stuff in two minutes:

David Hogg is one of this event's organizers. "Welcome to The Revolution," he began. It felt like it. His speech was a real Call To Action. His contempt for Congress was palpable as he gestured to the Capitol Dome behind him, saying "this isn't cutting it!" "To those politicians supported by the NRA that allow the continued slaughter of our children and our future, I say get your resumes ready." This from a guy who has received copious death threats! He is pissed and gives no fucks. Watch:

Another rabble-rouser was local high school senior Matt Post. His, too, was a Call To Action. "The immoral, the obstructionist and the complicit are lining up to block our path." His simple remedy: Vote Them Out --

"Vote them out. Vote Them Out. VOTE THEM OUT. VOTE THEM OUT!!" This recurrent chant resounded off the building walls along Pennsylvania Avenue. Whenever there was a pause in the action. Whenever they were urged to yell it out. All day long.

"Guns have become the voice of America," observed Chicago high schooler Mya Middleton. She shared her shattering experience with a gun. Though not deadly in its result, as were the stories from others, it demonstrates the lasting power of trauma. All these kids will suffer from PTSD. All people exposed to gun violence will, too.

A major "WOW" moment came when 11-year-old Naomi Wadler, a local, adjusted the podium microphone to her height. Her direct and eloquent statement, so much wiser than her years, resonated through the crowd. Simply put, her words were Truth. Hers was probably the best speech of the day, two minutes of brilliance:

There were about 20 speeches from students. They were all moving. It was hard listening to how kids cope with immediate gun violence, whether from the gritty urban streets of DC, LA and Chicago, or the pampered suburbs throughout our country. They ranged from gut-wrenching to soul-lifting. We couldn't help but weep when wounded student Sam Fuentes lead a "Happy Birthday" sing-along to her slain friend and classmate, Nick Dworet, who would have turned 18 on this day. Shortly before, she had barfed at the podium during her speech. "I just puked on international television... and I feel great!!" She rallied and went on. If this "Happy Birthday" rendition doesn't get to you, you're not human:

"This is not a moment, this is a movement," sang Lin-Manuel Miranda, earlier in the program. But the movement's moment truly arrived at the end. The last speaker, Emma Gonzalez, the face of the Stoneman Douglas rebellion, took the stage. After reciting the names of the 17 victims, who would "never again" enjoy the simple pleasures of everyday life, she ceased speaking. Instead, she stared straight ahead as the crowd absorbed what has been called "the loudest silence in the history of US political protest."

As the quiet grew, the focus on her still visage increased. This was the remarkable moment, when a half million raucous protestors fell completely silent as they watched Emma stand witness to her fallen friends. At first, there are some shouts of encouragement and some scattered chants. But then the power of her fierce silence grows and grows for nearly 4 minutes. I've never experienced anything like it. Honest to God, watch this and see if you've ever come close to this:

"Fight for your lives, before it's someone else's job." Mic drop.

Well. What do you do after that? It was the grand finale, even though Jennifer Hudson came out to sing a song (appropriately, considering her mother, brother and nephew were killed in Chicago by a gun). It was all over. People turned to figure out how to get to their Metro stop/bus/car/neighborhood/nearest toilet. We all admired each other's clever signs. "I'm a teacher, not a sharpshooter," read one. "The scariest thing in a school should be my grades," read another.

The astonishing thing about all this is that it happened because of the efforts of Stoneman Douglas students. Certainly, they received plenty of cash resources and assistance from adult "professionals". But they have been at the point of the spear from the beginning. They have presented themselves with such eloquence and poise that it's easy to forget they are high-schoolers. Here is an interesting candid moment that took place at a DC comic book store the day before the event (I've transcribed it from its original source):

"One of the Parkland school kids just came into the shop, and we talked for a little bit. He was a ball of energy, talking a mile a minute about comics, the insane schedule he's had, the people he's gotten to talk to since the shooting, and how he asked to have his schedule cleared to 1pm today just so that he could get a break.

"I don't think that people understand that while these teens are flying around giving interviews and being the face of a massive movement, they're barely holding it together. The young man that I spoke to was stressed out about having to give a speech at the march tomorrow, and I saw his hands shake as he held his portfolio. He said he saw the new Deadpool trailer, but couldn't watch the movie because he'd been classified as having PTSD, and it made him sad. He told me he didn't really have time to stay up to date with comics, but still found time to download some scans of George Clooney's wifi, and that he was actually surprised how much Obama says "fuck". 

"Two of his classmates came in later and buzzed around the store, arguing about which was more "endgame": Joker and Batman, or Harley and Ivy. The girl on Team Harley/Ivy was in specifically for the 6th hardcover of Scott Pilgrim, and loudly declared that she didn't care if it fell on Prom, she was going to Free Comic Book Day. 

"They're kids. They're hanging on by a thread, and they're mourning their classmates, and they're meeting with celebrities, and they're getting hammered by the NRA, and they're on the cover of Time,  and they're screaming for change, but they're still just kids. They're talking shit about comics continuity when a day beforehand publishers are quietly donating millions to their cause. They're taking on the weight of the world, and they're trying to stay mindful of their impact of their discussion on gun violence and its direct effect on communities of color, but they're also cracking Dad jokes.

"These kids are stronger than they should ever have to be, and anyone that can look them in the eyes and still tell them that guns are more valuable than their lives are the lowest of the low. They've seen shit that many of us hopefully will never see, and they found it within themselves to try and do something about it so that no other student has to either."

Amen to all that.

Finally, there is this. The Center for Disease Control (CDC), the nation's premier public health entity, has long been prevented from studying the effects of gun violence. The NRA-led politicians ensure it never gets the funding. However, other places have done so. Here is a brief summary from The Harvard Injury Control Research Center, a part of that university's Public Health program:

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/

TL:DR, "More Guns = More Homicides." Over and over. Country by country. The conclusions are unmistakable. Maybe this guy might even understand... well, prolly not:

Winning The Gold

"Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience," said Mark Twain. Hoo boy, can you imagine Twain today? He would utterly own the Twitter-verse with the most devastating tweets imaginable. His observations on the sheer insanity of what our country is experiencing would be riotous and true.

What would he have said about the last two weeks? While Olympic glory was being sought in South Korea, world class dopiness reigned as the default behavior for our government and its controlling political party.

Let's start with the "conservative" perspective on the US Olympics team, courtesy of Fox News/State TV Executive Vice President and Executive Editor, John Moody:

http://fortune.com/2018/02/10/fox-darker-gayer-different-olympic-team/

What a complete and irredeemable schmuck. His is the shrill and irrational voice of the Angry White Male generation. He'd fit seamlessly into the alt-Right's White Ethno-state.

Speaking of White, here's Vice President Pence and "Mother" at the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. Note that they are sitting while everyone else is standing/applauding. That is because the unified Korea team, mostly the host country, had entered the stadium. It is customary for everyone to stand and applaud the host country.

Instead, super-patriot Pence "took a butt" to show how America is better than everyone and that he wasn't happy about having to sit in front of Kim Jong-un's sister. The Pence faces seem to indicate an empty contemplation of gay conversion therapy success stories. Too bad Adam Rippon and Gus Kenworthy snubbed him - their face to face burns would have been priceless.

As usual, the Winter Olympics featured a lot of ice-oriented sports. The Trump Administration featured an ICE of its own, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. It's responsible for weeding out the murderers and rapists and really bad people that comprise undocumented immigrants here, including Dreamers and their families. Anyway, this happened while ice skaters pirouetted:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-ice-chief-counsel-pleads-guilty-using-identities-numerous-aliens-wire-fraud-and

Wow. Imagine... the ICE chief counsel pleading guilty to "aggravated identity theft" and "wire fraud".  It makes one wonder who are the real criminals at play here.

Another "ice-y" incident that emerged over the Olympics timeline was the Trump Administration's renewed attempt to completely eliminate the heating assistance program for low-income families. One supposes that hypothermia will create enough shaking that a freezing body will warm up?

https://bangordailynews.com/2018/02/18/politics/trump-once-again-wants-to-cut-energy-assistance-to-the-poor/

One Administration-related 'celebrity' that does not seem to need heating assistance is Louise Linton, the Marie Antoinette-like wife of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin:

Her mindset is firmly aligned with the Trump Family brand consciousness and the cabal of grifters assembled in the White House, including her mendacious husband. She tries to seem contrite over her past whoppers of breached protocol, but again...Wow:

https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a15895367/louise-linton-march-2018/

Speaking of engaging in the skilled sport of High Ridiculousness, what happened to Missouri during the Olympics? Their Republican Governor is led off in handcuffs for having taken "blackmail" photos of his stripped mistress, bound to an exercise machine and blind-folded. As a "family-values" guy, he's still supported by the state GOP, which says mega-donor George Soros is behind it all. His wife is going with it, for now.

Also in Missouri, rootin' tootin' pedophile Roy Moore, the failed Senate candidate from Alabama who still hasn't conceded because God has not told him to, is throwing his weight behind Republican Senate candidate Courtland Sykes. This is a match made in political heaven: Sykes seeks this kind of world for any future daughters:

"I don’t want them to grow up into career obsessed banshees who forego home life and children and the happiness of family to become nail-biting manophobic hell-bent feminist she devils who shriek from the tops of a thousand tall buildings they are think they could have leaped over in a single bound — had men not “suppressing them.”

He seems sane. Vote GOP for Missouri - a demented State of Mind. Another crazy Republican support group is the National Rifle Association, featuring their two-punch combo of Wayne LaPierre and Vampire Dana Loesch. Much has been said about the fear-mongering gun-lust extremism they proclaim. LaPierre did his best to convince everyone at the recent CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) that the NRA's opponents are "saboteurs who don't believe in capitalism, don't believe in the Constitution, don't believe in freedom, and don't believe in America as we know it." He said a lot of other bullroar, which you can read right here. Loesch said a bunch of stuff that serves to remind that she is a terrible human being.

It is pathetically Stupid and Crazy for what passes as "dialogue" from gun rights folk regarding the surviving students at Stoneman High School. Such hateful expressions coming from supposed "adults"... on the other hand, these students can more than handle it:

http://nymag.com/selectall/2018/02/stoneman-shooting-teens-drag-marco-rubio-trump-on-twitter.html

Wrapping up this post, let's take a quick peek at White House Senior Advisor to the President, Steven Miller. Here he is, laser-focused, during the recent WH meeting on School Safety following the Stoneman massacre. Even he can't keep awake during Trump's speech:

Finally, a couple of highly ridiculous - no, just the usual awfulness - and chilling actions from this time period. A new State Department position paper on policy has curtailed much support on Family Planning, LGBT issues and racial/religious/sexual discrimination:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/21/department-women-rights-abortion-420361

And the ongoing degradation of our planet, courtesy of Scott Pruitt's EPA, one year in:

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/02/its-been-one-year-of-amazing-scott-pruitt-accomplishments-all-of-them-horrible/

If grifters, religious zealots, extreme right-wingers, and hyper-partisan tribalists were competing in the Olympics of governing our nation into the ditch, they'd all be going home with the Gold! Wait a minute... oh, right, they are.

American Carnage, GOP/Trump-Style

"This American carnage stops right here and right now." Remember those words? They were among the many lowlights of Trump's "some weird shit" Inaugural Address. Among other things, it referenced the nation's "young and beautiful" students whose potential was being crushed by gangs and drugs and crime and stuff.

That speech was a manifesto for an administration that operates as if Opposite Day Is Every Day. Everything in it, and the 13 months that have followed, has been at odds with promised intents. Keeping students safe would necessarily mean that students wouldn't be safe.

Watching the unfolding TV news of the Parkland Massacre, I wondered what a pre-Columbine time-traveler from 20 years ago would think upon "apparating" next to me watching the traumatic events. Gawking at the awful scenes of high school students running with hands up while heavily armored police prepare to enter buildings. Listening to commentary that this is just the latest of assault-weapon-ized mass shootings as graphics appear that depict recent slaughters.

And on the bottom, the "tickler" banner runs along with news of the President's lawyer paying a porn star $130,000 to keep quiet about having had sex with the POTUS, the same President who is under criminal investigation for cooperating with a hostile foreign power in order to win the presidential election. The same President who seems to have an on-going secret relationship with this hostile foreign power. The same President who is actively dismantling the power and influence of the United States. The same President who is being protected by the Republican party in Congress.

Our time-traveler would think we've all gone bat guano crazy, and disapparate back to the time of Bill Clinton's impeachment, when things were more rational...

He wouldn't be wrong. Einstein supposedly said that Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. If so, this country is certifiable. Check out what the Onion says every goddam time we suffer another of these traumas:

https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1823016659

Marvin Gaye despondently sang of wanting to holler and throw up both his hands. Yes. But then there is hope in the form of Generation Z, personified by one of the Parkland students who survived the massacre. This guy should become the next Governor of Florida, starting tomorrow:

One obvious player that emerges into this latest act of American Carnage is the shooter himself. He has described himself as a Trump supporter, a real MAGA monster. He posted a disturbing photo of himself, adorned with Trumpian gear, along with his arsenal of legally procured weapons.

He was also someone who had trained in combat with a charming local White Supremacist militia group called "Republic of Florida". This is a neo-Nazi outfit that seeks to establish a "white separatist ethno-state".  They seem nice. And if you can stand it, here is an interview one of their leaders gave yesterday:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/nikolas-cruz-trained-with-florida-white-supremacist-group-leader-says

Our Sleazebag-in-Chief offered up a typical bundle of "thoughts and prayers" for the victims, while calling for the creation of a culture that promotes a "dignity of life", while answering hate with love and cruelty with reason. Again, this is "Opposite Day Is Every Day" for him, all day every day.

What would we be hearing/reading/seeing right now if the shooter had been radicalized by ISIS instead of White Supremacists? There would be no end to the outrage! The flow of Trump Tweets would be like Niagara Falls. Fox News/Hate Radio would have sprung a rare triple hernia!! Russian bots on social media would be promoting a hyper-ventilating zeitgeist! American RWNJs would be shrieking and calling for the next round of travel bans, and for a Muslim Registry. The volume of our nation, already at a 10, would be kicked up to 11. We'd all suffer a virtual nation-wide stroke!

No, instead it's a crazy MAGA kid with Nazi White Supremacy aspirations. So the level of media-driven White GOP/Evangelist Anger is not there. Instead, we have the inevitable "thoughts and prayers". And more of the Insanity Defense:

"This is not the time to jump to some conclusion not knowing the full facts." Yes, it's Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, commenting on why Congress won't pursue gun control for assault weapons after this latest outrage. Yes... this is certainly the first time anything like this has ever happened in the history of the United States, since the last times it happened. So we need more time to study.

And here he is, responding during those other times. Note the specific language. Eerie, isn't it, that the same words are used over and over and over?

And really, what's he going to say? "We need to figure out how to reduce White Supremacist violence"? Not after Trump cut back funds for research into reducing such Right Wing violence, instead choosing to focus exclusively on Radical Islamic Jihadist violence...  Or, after his GOP repeatedly refused to allow the CDC to study gun violence as a public health issue. "Thoughts and Prayers" are more easily offered up.

This all reminds of former Bush White House staffer David Frum's famous allegory:

A village has been built in the deepest gully of a floodplain.

At regular intervals, flash floods wipe away houses, killing all inside. Less dramatic—but more lethal—is the steady toll as individual villagers slip and drown in the marshes around them.

After especially deadly events, the villagers solemnly discuss what they might do to protect themselves. Perhaps they might raise their homes on stilts? But a powerful faction among the villagers is always at hand to explain why these ideas won’t work. “No law can keep our village safe! The answer is that our people must learn to be better swimmers - and oh by the way, you said ‘stilts’ when the proper term is ‘piles,’ so why should anybody listen to you?”

So the argument rages, without result, year after year, decade after decade, fatalities mounting all the while. Nearby villages, built in the hills, marvel that the gully-dwellers persist in their seemingly reckless way of life. But the gully-dwellers counter that they are following the wishes of their Founders, whose decisions two centuries ago must always be upheld by their descendants.

What can we, the gully-dwellers, do? It is helpful to know more about "the powerful faction". Know who they are, and vote them out. Here is a terrific compilation of the current top recipients of NRA campaign cash:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/04/opinion/thoughts-prayers-nra-funding-senators.html

Here is an even more comprehensive look at NRA legislators, state-by-state. It's really easy to click on any state and discover each Congress critter's haul:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/nra-donations/?utm_term=.e802bcfc47ac

And of course the $30 million-plus the Trump campaign received:

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/the-nra-placed-big-bets-on-the-2016-election-and-won-almost-all-of-them/

That's a whole lot of cash to ensure nothing gets done. Ya need to keep the level of fear high to sell that amount of guns and ammo to keep that campaign fund-river flowing.

In the end, it always comes down to this terrific piece of Swiftian satire, brought to you by our pals at The Onion. I hate/love it:

https://www.theonion.com/it-s-an-honor-to-continue-being-valued-over-countless-h-1819585030

To end things on a positive note, consider joining/donating to this group. It started with parents whose kids were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. It ain't perfect (it's gun violence prevention-oriented, not gun control), but it's groups like this that will lead us upwards and onwards...

https://www.sandyhookpromise.org

If Australia can do it, we can do it!!

The Real State Of The Union

Last week, the President delivered the State Of The Union address to Congress and the nation. As most SOTUs go, it was forgettable, as most are. It was memorable for things like the President clapping for himself numerous times through the speech. And for being the third longest SOTU ever. And for not being the highest rated, ever.

The content of the speech varied and wobbled wildly, much like how the Administration has handled itself this past year. As expected, much of the claims made lacked veracity, according to PolitiFact:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/jan/30/fact-checking-donald-trumps-2018-state-union-speec/

But the President managed to deliver the speech in his finest flat teleprompter-reading cadence. He pointed to the usual cadre of audience "hero" props. If he could have wrapped himself in the flag, he would have. And everyone marched out of the Capitol with their pre-determined Talking Points.

Two days later, nobody remembered anything about the SOTU. Because the Real State Of The Union was about to be delivered to the nation, courtesy of the POTUS, Devin Nunes (R-Kompromat) and his House Intelligence Committee (quite the oxymoron), Fox News/Hate Radio and a gazillion Russian bots.  This Top Secret memo was so hot that Trump had cleared it for public release without having the Intelligence Community and the FBI vet it, or have the Democratic minority offer their own analysis. The People needed to read it to draw their own conclusions!

And so it was on Friday morning, after a hyper-frenzied media anticipation and feverish ballyhoo that exceeded a combination of the Star Wars reboots and a Royal Wedding Announcement, that the Nunes Memo was unleashed. "100 times worse than Watergate!" railed Seb Gorka, late of the White House, in a typical tweet that captured the essence of thousands of other GOP/Russian bot expressions of preemptive outrage. This was the document that would bring down the crooked FBI, the biased Department of Justice, the hated Mueller investigation, the entire Democratic Party, Hip-Hop as we know it, Justin Bieber, and the Designated Hitter Rule.

Then everyone read it. "It's like reading the work of an underachieving 1L law student," said one grumpy legal expert. That was the kindest expression heard among a slew of astonished authorities who had girded themselves for something that would rock institutional foundations and "let justice be done though the heavens fall!" What had been advertised as the Holy Grail for Trumpers turned out to be a leaky and swamped lifeboat for them to grab onto while the seas get rougher. It highlights the Investigated seeking to control the Investigation.

For those who want to dig into the details, here are a couple of excellent pieces that really get to the heart of the Memo. John Schindler is a conservative veteran of the Intelligence Community. He is not impressed one little bit, and his take on it all is the best overall synopsis around:

http://observer.com/2018/02/devin-nunes-memo-disappoints-fails-to-cool-russia-investigation/

Another conservative, former prosecutor/Whitewater investigator Paul Roszenweig, can hardly believe his eyes:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/02/the-nunes-memo-makes-no-sense-216928

The money quote: "Perhaps even more significant is how the memo tries to bury the admission deep in the document that the entire FBI counterintelligence investigation of Russian influence was not triggered by the Steele dossier. Instead, as the memo admits only in its final paragraph, it was information about another Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, and his meetings that began the inquiry." 

As much as Trump and the GOP try to tar the Mueller Investigation, their disinformation efforts ("dezinformatsiya" for those following the old KGB playbook) have not yet expanded beyond the Kool-Aid Drinkers that comprise 35% of American voters. And it is curious that so many in the GOP have doubled-down, going "all-in" to defend Trump by way of defending this guy:

Carter Page represents a very strange hill for the GOP to decide they will fight or die upon. He has basically admitted to being a Russian "advisor". He's been in the sights of the FBI since 2013, when they discovered he was being recruited by Russia to spy. His many movements back and forth to Russia, on his own and as a representative of the Trump campaign, certainly merit FBI attention.

So what does this all really mean?

One big clue happened this last week. While DC's political punditry was in full riot mode regarding the Nunes Memo, a big deal set to happen never did: the Russia Sanctions were allowed to lapse. Yes, the same Russia Sanctions for meddling in our 2016 elections, the ones voted on 419 - 3 in the House and 98 - 2 in the Senate. The Sanctions for activities that the Trump Administration constantly deny ever happened. These Sanctions, designed to inflict punishing economic pain on Russia, are not going to be enacted.

It's always about Russia. Of all the nations in the world, Russia is on Trump's Bucket List. He has made a real Presidential career out of insulting any number of world leaders, countries and even continents - except Vladimir Putin and Russia. He has sought to back out of alliances and treaties that serve as bulwarks against Russia. He goes out of his way to placate Putin at any opportunity. It is really, really strange.

But what if it isn't strange at all? What if the FBI/IC are on the right track with this investigation? What if the Trump Campaign, and Trump himself, were fully-knowing partners with hostile Russia and Wikileaks in derailing the 2016 election? What if Russia was trying to use their influence on Trump, an "asset" from the late 1980's onwards, to destabilize the American electoral process? What if there was an enormous amount of "kompromat" they have on him and his family -- Russian mob money, Russian sex tapes of underage Russian girls, underage European girls from his Trump Modeling days, money laundering schemes that pulled him out of bankruptcy from way back.... what if any of these long-rumored stories are true?

And what if the more recent rumored story is true: the RNC (Republican National Committee) and other Republican PACs unwittingly accepted a whole bunch of dirty Russian money. It was easy to do. The Citizens United court case opened the flood gates for unlimited amounts of campaign money. Is it all kosher? Oh, Ha Ha. They now know it and will do anything to keep from being caught. And what about the RNC emails that Russia possesses, compliments of Wikileaks?

If true, it's the Double Death for the Republican Party - a President with Russian kompromat, and Republican leadership with Russian kompromat. Think about it. Why would Devin Nunes be doing what he's doing, especially after he had recused himself from all House Intelligence Committee Russian Investigation proceedings? Why would Speaker of the House Paul Ryan be so willing to give the Nunes Memo the green light without ANY vetting by FBI or the IC? Why is there such unified silence from the Republican Party whenever any Trump/Russia story pops up?

It's all a Big Question Mark, and it's the Real State Of Our Union.

What would Yeats and Shelley say today?

There are times when it really helps to take a few steps back and view the modern world through the lens of the classic poets. It is the role of a poet to use our language, in its highest form, to attempt expression of the often inexpressible. A great poem will reveal a fleeting yet fixed glimpse into Truth and our own souls. And when one comprehends its meaning, the cathartic effect can be healing and enlightening.

Lucky us, today's Daily Kibitz features three short but fantastic poems that are as pertinent to our current condition as they were when composed at various times over the last 200 years. What we'll try to do is to provide our own nugget analysis of what the poem means in general terms. Then we'll tie it in with how it relates to what's happening today.

Let's start with a poem from 1867. "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold, is perhaps the first poem about Existentialism - before Existentialism was even imagined! Written from his honeymoon cottage  above the beach below, Arnold moves beyond his own sense of sound and vision to figure why his soul feels empty. And why the world seems meaningless. And what he and his bride can do about it. 

Boom Boom, out go the lights! Faith as a centerpiece of life recedes like the tide. The Industrial Revolution, the fading Enlightenment, the overextension of the British Empire and the publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species" all contribute here as background factors to pull the rug out from the Victorian bedrock reliance of Religion and Man's Purpose.

And like then, we live in a time of great "churn", where Faith and Purpose are questioned and Institutions are attacked. It's unprecedented, the velocity of change we experience and the quantity of information we consume. But without certainty, without an abiding sense of Truth, we too are on that darkling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight.

It's a dark and scary world when the light goes out. And it feels very much like we are collateral damage as today's ignorant partisan and tribal armies clash by nihilistic night. Arnold's world view may be bleak,  but his solution is to love one another apart from the travails of the everyday. It may not seem like much, but it represents a Giant Step Forward.

Our next selection is from the great William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming", written in 1919. Yeats was an Irish romantic mystic who had witnessed the shattering cataclysm of World War 1, and the Easter Uprising in Dublin. Like Arnold, he saw events leading to chaos in the world and the diminution of previously long-held essential values. The Great War was over, and Ireland was still ruled by Britain, but beneath the veneer of order and stability raged a new sense of upside-down meaninglessness. And from this sense of nihilism would sprout monsters.

Here it is, with perhaps the most potent, and quoted, first stanza in all of World Literature:

What a profound and unnerving vision! The immediate power of this poem is felt directly today. Our own country has experienced an enormous and staggering shock to its system. It is now ruled by a government that promotes the apotheosis of The Strong Man. It exalts a Big Business and Autocratic agenda that knowingly desecrates the foundations of our democratic republic. It shunts aside the values of Conservation in pursuit of toxic short-term growth.

As "things fall apart" and the center's hold on stability collapses, it becomes easy to create a narrative that questions Truth in a way that makes people dependent on whoever is the loudest and most insistent. When traditional Truth-tellers have been made to look shady by The Strong Man, people will be more likely to seek "the Truth" from him and his government alone.

Interestingly, the Alt-Right/White Supremacist community early on embraced Donald Trump as one of their own. Many sites described him as their "Lion" and depicted him as something of a Manticore, much like what Yeats described.

To help us understand where our dark and turbulent world is headed, let's get some advice from Percy Bysshe Shelley. Our final poem, "Ozymandias", was written on January 11, 1818. The Napoleonic Wars were over. The Age of Kings was drawing to a close. Europe had survived a period where a megalomaniac was responsible for the deaths of millions. Shelley used the image of a waste land to capture the hubris, and the ultimate legacy, of such a leader:

It's not going to end well for Donald Trump, his family and - if we're lucky - his enablers in the Republican Party. Within a year or so, there will be damning indictments that will hobble his Administration into irrelevance and tarnish his sycophants in Congress. He may escape imprisonment - using a defense of impaired mental abilities comes to mind - but his son, his son-in-law and many powerful others will stand trial and see prison time. His cherished Trump Organization will come crashing down as breathtaking financial crimes are exposed.

The extent of these and Russian-related crimes will be seen throughout the Republican Party (and even within some of the Democratic Party). The tumult created by these criminal revelations will shake an already shaken nation, and the world. The great cloud of dust will settle to show a vast Waste Land (hello, T.S. Eliot... some other time). No one will believe it all happened!

Then, again if we're lucky, we can start over by simply loving one another and build on these small scale units of Trust. And stay on guard against the next tide that will inevitably roll in. And helping us keep guard, watching the "long, withdrawing roar" of the "blood-dimmed tide" is the Poet. The Poet is the Lighthouse Keeper, sending the beam of Truth out for all those who can see it.

The POTUS is a DIP (Deplorable Ignorant Piece of Doo)

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! Or, as it has been called in Virginia, Lee-Jackson-King Day. That's Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, two Confederate generals who incongruously shared this holiday with MLK until recently. (Now their birthdays are publicly celebrated a couple of days prior to King's.) Why would Virginia designate a holiday for Dr. King to be shared with Southern rebels who fought to keep his race enslaved? The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind... the answer is blowing out from our President's poo-hole.

Our Shithole President began today's MLK observance by quoting himself and blasting Democrats. No mention of Dr. King. Then he headed off to his golf course to spend the holiday chasing a little white ball. It's business as usual for our President - ignore or bait People of Color, and spend Executive Time on the links, or in bed with cheeseburgers. Maybe he just needs a whole lot of Me time. While our Duffer-in-Chief works on his hook, let's take a look at a few recent cringe-worthy events that highlight how our President honors the lifework and legacy of Dr. King...

Well, yes, there's the "Shithole" controversy. After the story broke how Trump had questioned "why are we having so many people from shithole countries coming here?" the White House pushed back, clarifying that Trump didn't mean that Haiti was a shithole like the other countries in Africa.

On a related note, the President had earlier suggested that Haitian visa travelers to the US "all have AIDS". And that visa holders from Nigeria, now one of the designated "shithole" countries, would never "go back to their huts" after seeing the glories of the US. Such rhetoric serves to remind why the President stands tall with the unshakeable core of his base:

It's a tried-and-true formula for bonding with his base, which is paramount for him. If they start to wobble, he's done. Therefore, he will proclaim or infer just about anything to keep them in good standing:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/12/trumps-racial-provocations-helped-to-vault-him-to-the-white-house.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain

Never mind that immigrants from these "shithole" countries represent similar or better levels of education attainment and skill levels as Americans. Never mind that our country was built by immigrants who came here seeking a better way of life... from "shithole" countries. Never mind that our economy depends and thrives on the demographic diversification that immigrants represent.

FFS, our own Mrs. Daily Kibitz came from a "shithole" country. Her family came here because of the Apartheid policies clamping down on their homeland. The USA offered fantastic opportunities, and welcomed them in. It's the American Dream! Immigrants and refugees seek out our country because they see their lives improving here, while escaping dysfunctional conditions in their own homes.  Despite what Trump Senior Advisor/Goebbels-wannabe  Stephen Miller says, the Statue of Liberty-located poem, "The New Colossus", exemplifies everything good about our country's approach towards welcoming immigrants. Let's face it - everyone who is not Native or African American came here willingly from some kind of "shithole" country, be it Ireland, India, Mexico or anywhere else. It's the story of our nation.

But certain people named Donald Trump think otherwise: Immigrants and Refugees mean less jobs for hard-working White Americans, and more dependency on Welfare. Don't let the facts get in the way of long-time racist thinking:

 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/refugees-revenue-cost-report-trump.html

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-welfare-black-white-780252?utm_source=internal&utm_campaign=most_read&utm_medium=most_read1

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2017/08/24/do-immigrants-steal-jobs-from-american-workers/

It's guaranteed that an immigration reversal would mean major staff employment problems for places like this:

Anagram for "His Hotel"

So... our President doesn't want immigrants from "shithole" countries. He wants them from Norway. Norway. The country that ranks #1 in Happiness, Prosperity, Political Freedom and Press Freedom. Where Health Care and College are free. Where Infrastructure is high-quality. Where gun violence is virtually non-existent. Where maternal and paternal leave is paid.  Where employers are REQUIRED to provide 25 working days for vacation, plus public holidays (US employers are required to provide 0 days). Let's let our favorite satirist, Alexandra Petri, take a look at "Why would anyone from Norway want to come here?"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2018/01/12/trump-and-shithole-im-shocked-shocked/?utm_term=.6ac2dae792f3

She is so good. Regarding Trump's "shithole" comment: "This is only a surprise in the sense that going to the bathroom and finding that someone has not flushed the toilet is a surprise. You know it isn't supposed to happen, but it's exactly the kind of thing you would expect to find there... It is a surprise in the sense that seeing the thing that is usually blurred or covered with a black bar is a surprise, which is to say, not. He forgot to leave the fig leaf on; that is all."

And while we are on the subject of "shithole" countries and immigrants, let's take a look at what Alexander Hamilton said about the dangers of a demagogic Authoritarian like Donald Trump. Hamilton, of course, was a penniless bastard orphan immigrant from a Caribbean island. He made good here (it helped he was White and educated). This is what he wrote in 1792, substitute "monarchy" for "facism":

"The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of anarchy, or want of government, they may take shelter in the arms of monarchy for repose and security.

"Those then, who resist a confirmation of public order, are the true Artificers of monarchy—not that this is the intention of the generality47 of them. Yet it would not be difficult to lay the finger upon some of their party who may justly be suspected. When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”

I believe that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Alexander Hamilton would have gotten on well. Neither would have any use for our President and his supporters. Think about MLK and his amazing life, goals and accomplishments. It chokes you up. Listen to him wrap up his final speech, in front of an audience of Memphis union workers:

And then, less than 24 hours later, Robert Kennedy gave this speech:

It's been 50 years. Much progress has been made, but much backsliding has also occurred. Let's keep the vision of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King firmly in mind as we go forward.