Another day, another mass shooting in a public place. I wll admit that this one, at a waterfront bar in North Carolina, is the first time I’ve heard of a float by shooting. The perpatrator, surprise surpirse – a cis-white male with mental health issues. If we really want to profile people in this country for general safety, white men should be allowed nowhere near firearms, also automobiles and ladders according to national statistics. Of course, correlation is not causation but higher levels of testosterone and less regard of risk do seem to travel together. Someday we’ll get over our worship of the second clause of the second amendment while completely ignoring the first, the one about a well regulated militia. Until that time, we will continue to pay the price in mass shootings to satisfy the Moloch of the NRA and affiliated groups. Of course we could adequately fund a robost mental health system as an alternative but we seem to be hell bend on destroying health care in general so that’s going to be a non-starter.
I leave the country on Friday for two weeks in Costa Rica (cue the travelogue). It will be interesting to get out of the pressure cooker of modern American life and times for a bit and see what’s going on through other perspectives. It was healthy when I did it in May and, at least through my personal lens, we’re worse off than we were thenso I assume that I have even more that requires venting. I used to have a T-shirt reading ‘Danger: Contents May Explode Under Pressure’. I may need to get another one the way things seem to be ratcheting down.
What’s going on this week? The continued collapse of civil society. I knew we were long past civil some months ago but the final nail in the coffin is the President of the United States telling his political opposition to ‘go fuck yourself’ on camera. Now I know that’s an old word that’s been part of the language for 1500 plus years but most politicians are wise enough to avoid it. Especially the representative of the party that’s sending its shock troops out to ban books from schools for ‘lewdness’ and threatening to pull network broadcast licenses based on speech issues. It also represents the intellectual level on which many of our leaders are now operating when they can’t come up with something more clever than a 5th grade playground remark.
The occasion of said remark was a question about the impending governmental shutdown which begins on Wednesday unless congress begins to do its job. As it hasn’t really been too keen on this since the days of New Gingrich, I’m not holding my breath. Those behing project 2025 are breaking out the champagne as they see this as a way to dramatically downsize the government by mass firing workers and closing government agencies (rather than keeping everyone on and paying them their arrears once the budget issues are worked out legislatively). Can’t say what will happen but don’t be surprised when there are closed signs at the national parks, you can’t get assistance with your taxes or social security, and your medical bills that flow through government programs are unpaid. Most Americans are savvy enough to recognize that the Republicans control all three branches of government currently. There will try to be a spin that ia shutdown is somehow the fault of the Democrats but I don’t think it’ll stick. But then again they’re still trying to spin the January 6th insurrection as some sort of picnic and capitol tour. If so, I’d pay to see video of that group’s visit to Disneyworld.
Trump has taken off the gloves when it comes to persecuting political enemies, firing lawyers who won’t indict those he doesn’t like on non-existent or flimsy evidence. Most attorneys who like having a license and shreds of a reputation seem to be avoiding getting involved in these shenanigans so a real estate attorney with no prosecutorial experience is trying to take down James Comey. I don’t think any judge worth his or her salt, no matter who may have appointed him or her, is likely to let that case get very far. Various White House apparatchiks have been circulating lists of other prominent Democrats who are on the enemies list. The big issue here is their attempting to criminalize ‘antifa’ or any sort of organized protest against current policy and weaponize it. We haven’t started marching members of congress off to political prison yet but that’s where that goes if left unchecked.
And here’s where things could get very dangerous indeed. After a couple of test runs, the administration is sending the military into ‘war ravaged’ Portland, Oregon. This is very deliberate as there has been more organized anti-ICE protest in Portlandia than in most other cities with a lot of of-nonviolent protests over the course of the summer being met with escalating response by ICE and federal officers. (The last arrests of protestors stepping over the line into violence was in July). I’m betting that the stage is being set to goad the more radical fringes of Portland into something that will trigger a major response. Whether that will be a Jallianwalla Bagh, galvanizing a society into viewing a situation in a completely different light or a Wounded Knee where the government gave out double the Medals of Honor they gave out on D-Day to try and cover up general thuggery time will tell. I can’t help but wonder if Hegseth’s summoning of all of the senior military commanders before the president on Tuesday, the day before shutdown, isn’t tied in. Will they be charged with a loyalty oath to the administration rather than to the constitution. Will they be required to prepare military force against the citizenry within the country in violation of constitutional principles and the Posse Comitatus act? Given the character of those in charge. Anything is possible. I guess we’ll all know in a few days, or will we?
I’m looking forward to writing about jungles and volcanoes and beaches and sloths and quetzals for a while.
Life, The Universe, and Everything 