The Ones I Knew (Part 1)

There are two groups of people in the news a lot these days, making fools and hazards of themselves and showing the world what a train wreck the Dis-United States has become: cops and Trump-culters. Watching the disaster from the moderate distance of a small town in Minnesota, I can’t help but be reminded of two examples of those two groups I have met and known lately. I think both of those people illustrate what the country is dealing with in every aspect of their natures.

Twenty years ago, I had a part time job working for a public access television station. A lot of the work for the station’s programs was performed by volunteers, of which I was one when I started working there. Some of those volunteers were nerdy high school kids working on pumping up their pre-college resumes with extra credit activities not involving sports or academics. Some of those volunteers had been doing that for at least a decade while their lived in their parents’ basement waiting for their ship to come in. Ted was in the first group. He was a tall, geeky looking, arrogant but awkward kid who had aspirations of going to the UofM in electrical engineering, but was a little too lazy for the demands of higher education. He often took the producer’s chair in some of the high school productions and his main talent seemed to be pretending to be a frustrated perfectionist who would bully the boys and hit on the girls and generally keep the com airways full of mindless noise and pointless criticism.

He was particular fond of the older, obsolete gear in the mobile truck and, occasionally, was helpful to me in figuring out how to jury-rig that gear into surviving a production. So, I got to know him a little. Mostly, I was the truck tech when he was a high school program producer, but later we both worked as truck techs when he was in college. He didn’t quite make it through a full year of engineering classes when he switched to “Law Enforcement’ at a community college. No surprises there. Immediately, he started telling me stories of his ride-alongs with the Ramsey and Hennepin County Sheriffs deputies. Mostly, stories about stopping various minorities and disassembling their vehicles on the freeway looking for “drugs and contraband.” It was obvious that his nerdy bully was really getting let off of its leash with his toy badge and that if he was ever allowed to play with a gun some innocent people were going to suffer.

When Philando Castile was murdered in Falcon Heights, I fully expected Ted to have been involved. The panicky, unskilled, irrational reaction Jeronimo Yanez had to Castile’s explaining that he was carrying a weapon was exactly the kind of scared-chicken reaction I’d expect from Teddy. It would be nice to learn that no police department was desperate or stupid enough to hand Ted a gun and a badge, but I suspect he’s armed and dangerous and out there waiting for his chance to create a disaster.

When we first moved into our retirement home, the place had been furnished with a collection of new, but lowest possible price, appliances by Wells Fargo Bank. The dishwasher didn’t last long, but I hadn’t bought the Maytag extended warranty when it was offered, but when the dishwasher failed a month after the warranty expired, I thought I’d test Maytag’s customer service with an email. I got a call back from Maytag and the customer service person promised a tech would show up and repair the machine under warranty. [Caution: Maytag customer service people make promises they can’t keep.] Wilbur, a local repair contractor showed up in a beat-up van with a scrawled “sign” on the side. It didn’t take him long to point out the fact that the washing machine was out of warranty and to determine the pump was defective (I knew that when I called Maytag.) and to write me a $60 invoice for his time.

After the screwing, Wilbur decided to start proselytizing about the as yet unelected Republican candidate, Donny Trump. His frame of reference was, of course, our last record-setting criminal executive administration; Ronald Reagan. Turned out he was something he called a “mechanical contractor” in southern California during the late-70s and early 80s. He described Reagan’s invasion of Washington, D.C. in terms that were clearly and weirdly religious. He listed a collection of Reagan’s accomplishments that not once touched on reality. It was one of the most insane moments I’ve experienced in Minnesota. Literally, almost everything Wilbur credited to Reagan either occurred under Carter, George H.W. Bush, or Clinton. I was baffled as to how such uninformed passion was created. So, I did some research. Turns out, one of the many promises made by Reagan in exchange for money and support was to construction unions who desperately wanted to avoid having to learn the metric system, since their grip on the US’s SAE mess was already pretty miserable. Reagan dismantled the U.S. Metric Board in 1982: a board created by President Gerald Ford and a national movement that was necessary for the United States to remain competitive in the world of science and industry. For once, Reagan kept his promise to a union, but the cost was enormous to both the US economy and to labor unions.

One of the dumber and self-destructive arguments against metrification was made by labor unions who imagined that switching would make it easier to off-shore manufacturing jobs. Instead, the lack of skilled labor capable of coping with the world’s dominant measurement system forced many companies to off-short their manufacturing facilities. Didn’t think that one out, did you goobers?

So, Wilbur’s dedication to Reagan and, on the rebound, to Trump is and was based on a complete misreading of his own sad economic history. I still don’t know what a “mechanical contractor” is, but in California we used to say “A contractor is an unemployed guy living in a pickup that he keeps moving to avoid the repo man.” I suspect that was Wilbur’s situation in California. The fact is, if you were a white guy who couldn’t make it in the 1980’s southern California federal welfare military-industrial boom, you were either severely injured or totally incompetent. When Wilbur visited our home, he mentioned he’d come “back home to take care of mother,” which is the classic homeless Boomer story when he or she have failed at life and have to move in with a parent to try and glom on to as much inheritance as possible to keep from having to live in a cardboard box.

So, two of my experiences with two of the groups causing so many problems in the Dis-United States are pretty classic: a dysfunctional spoiled white kid with bullying tendencies who wanted to be a cop and an old Trumper who thinks the world owes him a living because he is white. I wish there weren’t so many of those people out there.

Lowballing the Averages

I should have taken a picture, but I suck at that. On a recent visit to Rochester, MN for my wife’s check-up at the Mayo Clinic there, I saw a Trump supporter sign with “this is our 1776” statement somewhere in the general Trumpanzee gibberish. All the way home, I thought about that sign and the goober who paid for it. The 1776 conservatives were also known as “Tories, Royalists, Loyalists, or King's Men”: aka supporters of King George. Next up were the 1863 conservatives who revolted against the US government and national law and started the Civil War with an attack on Fort Sumpter and seceding from the Union. Realistically, those “conservatives” were clearly traitors. The late-1930’s US conservatives were generally positively inclined toward Adolph Hitler and even the attack on Pearl Harbor and the bombing of London didn’t convince them otherwise. One of the classic 20^th Century Republican conservatives, Senator Joe McCarthy, spent his first term in the Senate freeing convicted Nazi war criminals. In the 70s, conservatives lined up, first, behind Goldwater who wanted to start WWIII to see who had the most atomic weapons and, second, behind the record-setting criminal-producing Nixon administration. Reagan, the conservatives’ patron saint jabbered about economic responsibly while he created the US’s international debt flushing billions down his Star Wars toilet and generally spending money like it was falling from trees.

I have to admit I was surprised to see so many Trump signs in Rochester. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been. Rochester is where Minnesota Republican Party Chair Jennifer Carnahan is from and she’s the humorless nutjob who said, “We are jumping through the roof with excitement to welcome our great and fearless leader, President Donald J. Trump, back to Minnesota next week.” How someone from Minnesota would miss the connection between that statement and the Russian spies, Boris and Natasha, from Rocky and Bullwinkle blows me away.

What I have decided, based on long and careful observation and a growing cynicism—that the last 4 years have fed and over-fed—is that as smart as people are in a given area there has to be an equally stupid pool to keep the average . . . well, average. Rochester, MN residents possess an exceptional number of college degrees and Masters and higher degrees compared to the state, but Rochester has slightly more high school dropouts than the state average, too. The city has some of the nation’s most brilliant doctors, scientists, engineers, and managers and some of the freakin’ dumbest faux-conservatives on the planet to offset the city’s brilliance.

You could make an argument for avoiding ultra-educated cities because you’ll also be surrounded by hyper-idiots who leech off of the productive members of their society and whose purpose appears to be only to drive the average IQ to the national mean. That won’t work, though. The half-wits who call themselves “conservatives” are everywhere. You, literally, can’t find a place in this country that isn’t infested with the conspiracy sheep, racists, entitled and uneducated underachievers, and general purpose fools. We’ve been breeding them for centuries.

Conservatives, You Have Convinced Me

You have convinced me. There have been so few Republicans since Teddy Roosevelt who have advanced the cause of democracy that I could count them on the fingers of one hand. So, when you say “better Russian than democrat,” the lower case “d” is not a typo. You have convinced me that this is exactly who you are: people who do not believe in the democratic form of government or in justice, fairness, equality, or basic decency. You have convinced me that you do not believe that individuals are as important as hyper-rich people or corporations. You have convinced me that you will do anything to turn the United States into an authoritarian state; a nightmare for most and a fascist’s wet dream. I believe you when you quote James Madison’s claim that democracy is “the tyranny of the majority”; a statement meant to justify the defense of slavery that was built in to the US Constitution. You have convinced me that you believe your false flag: that preventing a single illegal vote is worth obstructing thousands, even millions, of your fellow citizens from exercising their most precious and important civic responsibility: the right to vote.

You have convinced me that you believe “blue (and white) lives matter” more than any other life. Nothing is more important, to you than a police officer’s life and lifestyle, regardless of how many citizens have to suffer to protect that officer’s comfort and security. “Protect and serve” was never meant for all. The police department is who you expect to “protect” your entitlement as a white person, as a real American. When a cop, or even a random white person “standing their ground,” shoots an unarmed person of color, it is always justified. You’ve convinced me that is what you believe.

You’ve convinced me that you believe your right to play with guns is much more precious than the lives of children, let alone the rest of society. That attitude has spread into a portion of the public who now believe their right to possess or do something always overrides anyone else’s health, safety, or peace of mind. The prior adage/understanding was that your liberties ended at another person’s nose. However, now your pursuit of happiness is grossly more important than anyone else’s.

With your indefensible commitment to Donald Trump, you have convinced me that you imagine your religion to be the “one true religion” and anyone not believing exactly the same vision as you is a heretic. The idea of “freedom of (or from) religion” is, in your mind, un-American. You would love for the Dark Ages to return so that you can torture anyone who disagrees with you as a witch, an infidel, or a terrorist. The fact that a man who has happily admitted to committing every one of the seven deadly sins is now your “holy warrior” has cemented what your religion represents: the constant pursuit of money over all other values.

You have convinced me that you believe any news source not telling the story you’ve decided is true, regardless of evidence, is “fake news” and no evidence will ever convince you otherwise. In fact, I am convinced that you do not believe any evidence that conflicts with your beliefs. Truth is a casualty of your beliefs. Facts are an archaic construct that is incompatible with your belief system.

You’ve convinced me that you believe “education” should only tell the stories you’ve decided are true, the stories that make you comfortable with your country’s history and your race and your family history’s part in it. I am convinced that you imagine the world can go back to where some people were called “master” and that you deserve to be one of them.

You obviously believe a man who calls himself “the greatest President in history” is actually that, as if bragging makes it true. You have convinced me that your definition of “great” is in no way similar to mine. You’ve convinced me that every movie I’ve ever watched that had “bad guys” also had people in that same audience cheering for the people I thought were wearing the “black hats.”

You have convinced me that you believe all those things. You have convinced me that the United States of America you desire is a different place than the one I once hoped we were trying to build. You have even convinced me that there isn’t much point in hoping that you might understand the idea “my country, let me right the wrongs.” Patriotism and jingoism are not the same thing. There is little to no self-sacrifice or service involved in your version of patriotism.

You have convinced me that you are willing to go to war with your neighbors and anyone in the country who doesn’t believe these things. I do not believe that you understand the consequences of your actions and beliefs. I am beginning to believe that there is no way back to “normal” in the remains of this country because the distance between your “values” and mine are so vast that we might as well be two different species, let alone citizens of the same country. You have even convinced me that humans are incapable of surviving good times together, let alone the harsh and difficult times that we will experience because of the climate we are altering with our selfish and careless use of fossil fuels. You have convinced me that we have degenerated below the kind of Americans who worked and fought together to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and who worked even harder to recreate a post-Great Depression  economy and federal government that had the hope of allowing “the pursuit of happiness” for all Americans. The best we have ever imagined, and never realized, was that bare hope and you have convinced me the light of that hope has been extinguished.

I cannot say I appreciate the education you have provided in these last four years. My friends often remind me that I am no optimist and I always counter that with “a ‘pessimist’ is what optimists call a realist.” I think the last 40 years in this country have proved that being a pessimist is the most accurate path to take in the declining years of the United States of America.

It’s Not A Team Sport

A bunch of years ago, I was waiting for a friend in a White Bear bar when some drunk sidled over to me and asked, “What about them Vikings today? We really whipped up on the Bears didn’t we?”

I sort of grunted, which he took for agreement and he went back to staring into his beer bottle and I found a table, a safer, less idiotic place to wait for my friend. The “conversation” pretty much baffled me, though. Who was the “we?” No chance that sot had anything to do with winning a pro football game.

Politics have become as inane as pro football fans. People actually cheer for Donald Trump, as if he is performing some kind of sporting act in his jibbering reality show tactics. They even shout “Go team Trump!” and call him their “fearless leader.” It’s a freak show out there. Frank Zappa predicted all of this in 1973 with “I’m the Slime.”

I am gross and perverted
I'm obsessed 'n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little has changed
I'm the tool of the Government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you

I may be vile and pernicious
But you can't look away
I make you think I'm delicious
With the stuff that I say
I'm the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I'm the slime oozin' out
From your TV set

You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don't need you
Don't go for help . . . no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold.

H.L. Menken wasn’t off an inch, except in claiming this was a flaw in “democracy,” something the United States constitution was designed to prevent at all costs: “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” I guess it must be true that Trump represents the shriveled “inner soul” of his fans and cohorts, but it wasn’t democracy that put Trump into office, it was the flawed republic concept and the Devil’s contract also known as the Electoral College. A democracy requires a faithful execution of “one citizen, one vote” and our system fails that test and has at least three times in the nation’s history.

A lot of people have been amazed at how impossible it has been to penetrate the tiny, locked-down minds of Trump’s cult members with the usual tools: logic, facts, and rational argument. Try convincing a Packers or Steelers fan that their team “ain’t the greatest” and you’ll find yourself in exactly the same kind of argument as with a Trump fanatic. They have been convinced that their investment in Trump somehow will dribble over on to themselves when he “wins.” Just like the drunk with whom I opened up this essay, he and they imagine themselves on the same plane as the multi-millionaire football players and their wanna-be-billionaire politician/reality show character. Like the football players, Trump doesn’t want anything from these people but their money and like the football players, Trump isn’t going to give them anything back for their fanaticism. Once he’s elected, they can live or die and it is no sweat off of his balls; there are millions more where they came from. Suckers are a dime a dozen in these dis-United States.

But American politics isn’t a game. Democrats and Republicans not opposing teams in a pointless physical contest in which the outcome has no real consequence. If every football player and game in history vanished from existence, the world would be the same place it is today, except slightly improved. If every professional team in every country on the planet disbanded and the players had to find real jobs, no harm no foul. Doesn’t matter. If Donald Trump and the Republican Party are allowed to keep driving the United States toward a oligarchy with a dictator at the monster’s head, everyone in this country and, very likely, every person on the planet will be worse off. If you say, “I’d rather watch soccer that to have to cheer for the Packers,” who cares? Watch soccer or don’t. When you say, “I’d rather be Russian than a democrat” (the lower case “d” is an accurate quote), you are saying you’d rather be a traitor than to reconsider your team affiliation. One of these situations is of no consequence. The other is deadly important. 

No rational person ever "wins" an election. Serving the American public is  the most thankless task a human can take on. Being elected to public office, for a decent law-abiding citizen, is an obligation, a call to serve, but it is not a victory of any sort. In the case of the US Presidency, the only person that job has not rapidly aged has been Donny J. Trump. The man is oblivious to responsibility and serving is what every other person in the country is supposed to be doing for him. Barak Obama went from being a young man to a very old looking, very tired old man in 8 years. The job even took a toll on G.W.  Bush; but not Dick Cheney. I'm not even sure you could blame the pressure of the presidency on Reagan's decomposition. The trip from vapid to senile is a short one. But for anyone who is not in it to pack their pockets and wreak the nation like a Trump business scam, the job of president is a miserable assignment for which we will likely see fewer and fewer decent people apply. Left or right, the public won't be pleased unless everything you do turns out perfectly. Even then, they'll find something to complain about. Instead of celebrating when an election concludes, we ought to be sending the "winner" our condolences.