Crime, Politics, and Magic

People who believe in magic do not ordinarily give up their belief in magic when their magical acts fail. They always have an acceptable explanation for the failure. If my love magic failed it was because my rival had stronger magic, if someone hadn’t found my magical bundle it would have worked, I should have used eagle feathers instead of turkey feathers, and so on.

Crime, I think, especially in the case of repeat criminals, operates in much the same way. If that patrol car hadn’t unexpectedly arrived we would have got away, if he hadn’t snitched on us it would have worked, if the getaway car hadn’t had a flat tire, and etc., etc.

Such explanations always have perhaps a grain of truth in them, that’s why they are used and why the basic beliefs in magic are not abandoned. It is, I think, much the same in politics. One might use, for example, the 48 (or more) votes Republicans in the House have tried to do away with Obamacare. You could regard this as insanity but it could also be seen as an example of magical thinking. But it can also be seen as magical thought when, for example, a losing candidate claims he or she lost because of the weather, or because there was not enough money for ads, or because if so-and-so hadn’t received certain endorsements they would have won, and so on. Losers don’t necessarily give up their beliefs that they might well have won if such-and-such hadn’t happened. They seem to believe their particular beliefs, no matter how out of touch with reality they may be, would have produced victory had it not been for some kind of random or divine intervention. It is not that their particular beliefs or goals are simply outrageously out of touch, it is that something accidentally, randomly, or unexpectedly happened to thwart them. It is not that they are wrong about  “what Americans believe,” but that others mysteriously do not agree with them (they are insufficiently informed, listen to the wrong stations, etc.).

You see the same kind of magical thinking on the part of some when it comes to things like global warming. When 97% or more of all scientists agree on the phenomena, and that it is caused at least in part by human activity, and some still deny it, you are up against magical thinking, “Only God controls the weather,” “It’s just natural that the weather changes,” and so on. We have people, including Congresspersons, who apparently do not believe in science. If they deny science they do so only through some form of magical thinking.

I guess that I, too, believe in magical thinking. For example, I think the problems we are having with Health Care could be quickly and easily remedied. We could have had a single payer system, Medicare for all,  that would have eliminated the problems we seem to be having with Obamacare, would have been far more efficient, more inexpensive, more sensible, and already proven to be successful in many other countries. Perhaps the main reason we do not have such a sensible system of universal health care is because of the apparently magical belief that socialism is the work of the devil, or something akin to a venereal disease, or even worse, the end of civilization as we know it.

Then there are other seemingly magical beliefs that keep us from solving many of our problems. The belief, for example, that unemployment insurance keeps people from wanting to find jobs, or that food stamps contribute to sloth and laziness, or that the poor are poor because they want to be, and so on. As there is no basis in fact for any of these beliefs I suggest they are basically magical, and as such, they are virtually impossible to deal with as magic relies on magical thinking, and magical thinking cannot be easily changed. If it could we would not be in the downward spiral we are now experiencing. Indeed, I would argue that most of our current beliefs are basically magical, we are not “the shining beacon on the hill,” “exceptional,” “the world’s greatest democracy,” “the hope of the world,” “the most indispensible nation,” or whatever. That is all magical thinking, pure and simple.

“[American exceptionalism] is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global complexity or important issues like American energy dependency. Therefore, they search for simplistic sources of comfort and clarity. And the people that they are now selecting to be, so to speak, the spokespersons of their anxieties are, in most cases, stunningly ignorant.” 


― Zbigniew Brzezinski

Ideology

What is ideology anyway? Like most words you won’t get far turning to the dictionary. Presumably ideology is some sort of “visionary theorizing, a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture, a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture, the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program.”

We are commonly being told these days that the Tea Party is ideological, they oppose President Obama on ideological grounds, that somehow they have “integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program.” I don’t believe it. First of all I doubt that most Tea Party members are smart enough to actually embrace any genuine ideology, except perhaps something like government is bad, if that actually constitutes an ideology. Perhaps they believe that hating Obama constitutes an ideology? Or I guess they think that wanting people to go without health insurance, unemployment insurance, food stamps, minimum wages, Social Security, Medicare, and any other form of assistance constitutes a “theory that constitutes a sociopolitical program? Given that the Tea Party movement (or whatever  you want to call it) was not really a grass roots movement, but actually funded and created by billionaires, I doubt that ideology had much to do with it. Ideology in this context is merely a euphemism for greed.

I suppose there may be some Tea Partiers that actually do believe abortion, for example, is wrong. But this is not really an ideological position, and is certainly not “integrated” into some grander ideological belief system, especially as the very same people who are opposed to abortion are also opposed to food stamps for children, welfare, and etc. I guess you might argue that “government is the problem” is a form of ideology, but as this view is held by the same people who drive on highways, send their children to public schools, use the Postal Service, the Veterans Administration, accept subsidies for crops, enjoy Medicare, and so on, it is, once again, not really “integrated” in any realistic way.

Unless you are some kind of unthinking monster you cannot possibly believe in an ideology that denies health care to millions, food stamps, unemployment insurance, health care, living wages, and so on. Such beliefs are not ideological, they are stupid, thoughtless, short-sighted, and coached by those who stand to gain profit by denying them.  I do not believe Tea Partiers are ideological at all, watch what happens to them when the corporate teat is taken out of their mouth.

Tomorrow is an election day. I sincerely hope that Republicans everywhere are so soundly defeated they take their “ideology” with them to a much deserved and permanent “elephant graveyard.” As most of the Tea Partiers seem to come from Southern States maybe we could pass a law instructed them to keep their village idiots at home. Nevada sends their mentally ill and confused on buses to California, Southern states send them to Washington, D.C.  to protest everything that is right and decent about our country.  

  Optimism and stupidity are nearly synonymous.” 
― Hyman G. Rickover

A Question of Evil

If you look up evil on your online dictionary you will doubtless find something to the effect of “morally bad,” or something that “causes harm or injury to someone,” something that is  “sinful,” “wicked,” even “morally reprehensible.”

Knowing more or less what evil is in the abstract does not, of course, inform one of what is an evil in everyday life, whether any individual act or behavior is evil. Nor does it tell you if evil is “relative” or not, that is, does it exist in some cases but not in others because of circumstances or cultural values. If aboriginal Eskimos, living in an exceedingly harsh environment, occasionally left an elderly feeble person to die because there was not enough food to go around, was that evil? Or similarly, if certain aboriginal people killed one of a pair of twins at birth, because (1) they believed multiple births were animal-like, or (2) a woman could not adequately care for two children because of constant raiding and warfare, was that an evil act? Are there absolute evils, evils that are evil wherever found? If an enemy combatant is captured and tortured to extract information from him or her, is that necessarily evil? We sometimes avoid deciding on absolutes by saying simply, well, sometimes there are “necessary evils.”

But what if the particular evil was not, in fact, necessary, as in the case of torture, which we have been told by professionals in interrogations that it is or was not? As torture has been banned both internationally and by our own legal system one might think it is considered absolutely evil. Interestingly enough, it seems to me, torture may be the closest thing we have to an absolute evil. Killing, for example, is certainly not so considered, as it occurs with such regularity both on and off the battlefield as to automatically be (whenever more often than not unnecessary) classified as a necessary evil.

Although we have a concept of evil we seem to go to great lengths to ignore it, even sometimes excusing it. If a person opens fire with an automatic weapon killing several others we don’t necessarily describe him (it is rarely, if ever, a “her”) as evil, preferring instead to describe him as “insane,” “enraged,” or “seeking revenge.” “Temporary insanity” is a useful euphemism for explaining an evil act. Domestic violence, including child abuse, occurs so frequently and obviously harms others, but we don’t necessarily consider it evil. It may be “bad” or “wrong,” even “stupid,” but it’s just “one of those things” that happen. It’s only when some behavior becomes so egregious we cannot fully comprehend it that we fall back on saying, “well, there are just evil people in the world.”

It seems that when it comes to defining evil you are pretty much on your own. This seems especially true when it comes to harming others. Take food stamps and unemployment insurance, for example. Republicans want to cut them if not eliminate them entirely. They try to justify this by claiming they keep people from wanting to work, so if they didn’t have them they would have to find jobs. However feeble an argument this is on its face, when you consider that most of the recipients are children, the elderly and infirm, and this clearly harms them, this would seem to be something that could easily be considered evil. When you couple it with the fact that the very people who are demanding recipients find jobs are the same people who have done everything in their power to prevent jobs from being created, you have what to me, at least, is clearly an evil act. The same evil theme runs through the question of health care. Why, one might wonder, would anyone want to deny health care to millions of their fellow citizens? This is manifestly evil to begin with, but when you learn they oppose it mostly because they hate Obama and do not want him to benefit from it, this transcends politics and becomes just plain evil. Yes, I am suggesting that Republicans are not merely “playing politics,” they have evil intentions and seemingly delight in causing harm to others, opposing virtually every attempt to benefit anyone other than their billionaire benefactors. In the “modern world,” when it comes to human life and dignity, it seems to me there are only three possibilities: jobs for everyone, some form of at least minimum subsistence (welfare), or just let them die. As Republicans seem to favor this third possibility, I submit they are manifestly evil.

There is, I believe, no evil in nature. There is violence to be sure, and killing, but the creatures involved in this natural order of things are not evil, they are doing precisely what they were designed to do. They have no choice. Choice seems to be unique to our species. You can only find evil where there is choice. You might argue that acting out of stupidity does not make you evil, and while some Republicans are surely stupid people, most of them are not, they are knowingly harming others for no good reasons. Oh well, sometimes there are just evil people.  

If you want to eliminate evil from the world, eliminate humans. Curiously, in the English language, evil spelled backwards is “live” (which I doubt has any symbolic significance), but all who live are not necessarily evil. I suspect that George W. Bush, for example, although somewhat stupid perhaps, was not an evil person, unfortunately the same cannot be said for his “Rasputin,” probably the personification of evil.

“Animals don't behave like men,' he said. 'If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don't sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures' lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.” 

Richard Adams

The Developing Tragedy

Eighty-four years ago today the Stock Market crashed…and I was born. I’m not sure it crashed just before I was born or just after I was born. What I do know is that the connection between the two events is totally irrelevant. Similarly, when I was born the market was at its all-time low, today it is at an all-time high, but again, that is completely irrelevant. I suspect that much of what seems to concern us at the moment, unemployment, abortion, Obamacare, immigration, spying, the coming elections, Benghazi, the budget, and so on, although they would appear to be of great importance, are basically irrelevant  to the two linked unfolding human tragedies that are about to occur.

The first of these is global warming that will, if no immediate actions are taken, result in a human tragedy of monumental proportions. Taking such actions are, unfortunately, intimately linked to the second tragedy, slowly developing as we fritter away our time dealing with the myriad “problems” that are, by design in most cases, distracting us from the worst tragedy of all that is about to overtake us…Corporate Fascism.

“ Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
Benito Mussolini 

Mussolini wrote on fascism when conditions were much simpler than they are at the present time. His view sees the development of fascism as a merger of two distinct and strong “powers,” the power of the state and the power of corporations. I think he was unaware of the possibility that the power of the state (nation) could actually be usurped by international corporations with unlimited resources, corporations that did not exist with so much power during Mussolini’s time. But this is what seems to be happening now as we argue needlessly about abortion, Benghazi, Hillary, and which Republican nitwit will front the Republican Party, none of which will ultimately matter in a world controlled by a few massive corporations and billionaires (not unrelated interests).

It seems to me the evidence for this takeover is clear. We bemoan, for example, the relative demise of the U.S., losing our power over others and falling behind in most vital respects, with rampant unemployment, inefficient medical care, failing schools, loss of manufacturing , and etc., etc. Why, in the “most powerful nation on earth,” should this be happening? I submit it is because nations, including ours, are becoming irrelevant in the modern “globalization” context. Powerful nations are a threat to the International Corporations that are increasingly more powerful, with budgets that dwarf those of most nations. From their point of view, nations exist only to compete to provide the least  expensive work force and the least expensive resources that enable the corporations to flourish. In this scheme of things the U.S. is no different than any other nation.

Of course the U.S. remains a “world power,” even the most powerful one on earth, but this is true only because it is controlled by corporations that are primarily only interested in using its military and intelligence agencies to insure their global hegemony. It is only militarily that the U.S. remains powerful, and it is only the Pentagon budgets that are considered important enough to continue to be funded and overfunded year after year. We now have a “volunteer” military, essentially a mercenary force. While it is true this force ostensibly represents our “national interests,” and performs very efficiently and even “patriotically,” on the orders of our government, our government is controlled by international corporate interests. Thus our military power is little more than a private corporate force that does not necessarily have to do with “national” interests. What national interests, as opposed to corporate interests, were served by invading Iraq (where their oil fields were hypothetically divided before the attack), what national interests would be served by attacking Iran (to benefit Israel and protect our Middle East hegemony), by staying in Afghanistan (with their apparently many as yet untapped natural resources). And who will benefit from our current boast that we will surpass Saudi Arabia and Russia in producing oil and gas? And who will benefit from a gigantic pipeline carrying dirty oil from Canada to be sold on the international market? All of this, in turn, is due to the fact that our nation is now controlled by an elaborate military/industrial/political complex that is the mainstay of our increasingly militarized nation, a nation that now exists only on the basis of the continuing wars necessary to keep it going and generate corporate profits through the exploitation of others. The tragedy here is not only that this system reduces nations in importance vis-à-vis corporations, but, more importantly, reduces humans to the level of peasants and serfs, no more than nuts and bolts, basically dehumanized, with no more rights and privileges than any other commodities on the marketplace. Labor, no matter how technologically sophisticated, is bought and sold no matter where it is found. If it doesn’t exist in the U.S. it can be found elsewhere. “Buy American might be an interesting slogan but it has no meaning in international competition.

Social Security, Medicare, minimum wages, unemployment insurance, food stamps, vacations, a forty hour work week, were not gifts presented to us by the generosity of corporations and they are now relentlessly trying to do away with all of them.

“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.... Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.” 
―

Me and Kati (6)

Well, Kati, we finally got rid of those two burn piles. Watching them burn, and especially watching the smoke rise and slowly disappear, inspired me to enjoy that (perhaps) uniquely human experience, “wonder.” I began to wonder where the smoke went. Now I wonder if you ever wonder. I know you are only a cat, but I also know I often see you sitting apparently lost in thought, quite unlike either Midnight or Spencer, who wander incessantly in search of adventure. You Kati, are my (almost) constant companion and the only one I can talk to (you are a really good listener), and you stay here close to home.

I more or less understand where the smoke comes from, formerly living trees and bushes, now dead and burning. Only two things result from this process, ashes and smoke. The ashes lie there in full view, but the smoke rises and drifts away eventually disappearing entirely. But does it truly disappear? Perhaps it just becomes invisible but still exists in some form out there in the atmosphere.

This question led me (inevitably?) to the question of mortality, or, more precisely, immortality. As I do not believe in what most people think of as “souls,” I don’t believe souls hover around  influencing the living one way or another. On the other hand it does seem to me that when a person dies his or her influence does remain for some time, perhaps even forever in some cases (Shakespeare, for example). This is so because of the millions of interactions one has had with others throughout one’s lifetime, interactions that were experienced by others and therefore incorporated in one way or another into their lives. I wonder, for example, how I might have influenced the many hundreds (more like thousands) of students I had over the course of some thirty years. Likewise, the influences I must have had with friends and acquaintances, in some cases more intense relationships than others, but present nonetheless. Then, of course, there are the material things one might have left behind, poems, books, personal stories, works of art, and so on. What one has done during his or her lifetime lives on in some sense after their death. Perhaps there might come a time when their influence, having been basically invisible in this way for a time, does completely disappear. Quite likely some individuals remain invisibly influential longer than others. One does, no doubt, hope their influences on others have been more positive than negative (in sum total, at least).

Kati, you are such a great listener, never interrupting, arguing, heckling, just lying there quietly on my lap, content just to “be.” You know Kati, when a person dies it’s basically no different than when any other living thing dies, except when it comes to the disposal of the corpse.  Humans have devised all sorts of ingenious ways to deal with dead bodies: they can be buried in the ground, thrown in the water, left exposed to nature, mummified, smoked, eaten, and cremated. And you see, Kati, when a person is cremated it’s just like the burn piles, there remain a few ashes but the “essence,” so to speak, goes up in the smoke, becomes invisible, but still exists out there in some form along with the essences of all who of have died previously. I guess in this very limited sense we might say that we do, indeed, eventually join our loved ones.

Here is one of my favorite poems:

    “Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.”

― Robert Louis Stevenson

I love the sentiment but I confess the thought of a grave I find terrifying. I cannot imagine being confined in a dark box buried underground (no matter how comfortable or elegant the box).  I quite definitely want to go wherever it is the smoke goes.

Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men.

Quintus Ennius 

Homo Insaneiensis

Ho um, just another day in the life of homo Insaneiensis, a species so highly evolved technologically they have lost the ability to survive without it, and, more importantly, have also lost the ability to reason, govern themselves, and manage the tiny planet that supports them. They inhabit mostly the northern climes and have reached their highest development on the North American continent.  

We now know that in spite of all the lies we were told by BP, the oil spilled into the Gulf has produced an environmental disaster far more grave and (probably permanently) destructive than imagined (except for a few who realized from the beginning what a disaster was in the making). Of course the damage done by the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska still persists, a huge spill in the Dakotas recently went unreported for ten days, and oil spills of various kinds , many serious, happen with regularity. You might think a responsible species would have learned from these disasters, but apparently homo insaneiensis have not. They are still drilling deep water wells and are about to build an enormous pipeline to move dangerous oil from Canada to Texas so it can be sold on the world market and the Koch brothers can reap many billions in profits. It appears there is little advantage, if any, for the U.S., and the possibility of enormous damage when the pipeline bursts here and there as it inevitably will. It is possible for the species to wean itself from petroleum based energy but it requires effort, intelligence, and will, qualities no longer found among homo Insaneiensis.

We were also systematically lied to about the recent Fukushima melt down which we now know is a disaster far greater even than Three Mile and Chernoble. In fact, just how bad it may prove to be is still unknown and it will eventually pour massive quantities of radioactive poisons into the ocean. Contaminated fish are already reported being harvested off our West Coast. In spite of the unbelievable disaster still in the making from Fukushima we continue to run our nuclear plants even though we know many are unsound and could easily malfunction. There are still those who argue such plants are safe and would like to build even more (happily they are proving to be too expensive and more may not be constructed).  The mystery is why would anyone in their right mind want to continue using nuclear energy (or even petroleum, for that matter) knowing what we now know? But of course homo insaneniensis, by definition, are not in their right minds (or so I have concluded from many years of membership within the species).

There is also the problem of global warming, the greatest threat ever to face homo insaneiensis. Some 97% of all scientists agree that global warming is not only happening but is quite definitely linked to human activity. But little of note is being done to solve this problem, importantly due to some who refuse to believe scientific evidence and say that, just as “only God can make a tree,” so only God can determine the weather, science schmience. Of course those powerful entities most responsible for creating the problem are making so much short term profit they are unwilling to face reality and actively resist any remedial action. And as they now control our government they easily get their way.

Along the way homo insaneiensis have lost the ability to govern themselves. This accelerated degeneration began with Saint Ronnie the Moron, an ex President, who uttered the most mindless and infamous phrase that inspired it all:  “Government is not the solution, government is the problem.” This absolutely absurd pronouncement by perhaps the most typical member of the species fell on the ears of some other willing-to –believe-anything-morons and our degradation began in earnest. It continues as our by now increasingly dysfunctional government fails to manage even the simplest of our many challenges. In short, under years of our vaunted “Capitalism” we have devolved from being “civilized” to being “savages,” having bypassed the intermediate stage of “barbarism” entirely on the way down, in favor of returning more quickly to the “law of the jungle,” cannibalizing each other, sacrificing the many (including women and children) to reward the very few with wealth so obscene it cannot be adequately described. Karl Marx may well have been wrong about communism but he was surely right about capitalism.

I was stopped on the street of our little town today by a woman I recognized but do not really know. She informed me in all seriousness (and confidence) that very soon the banks would regulate how much money we could deposit or withdraw in any given period of time. They were doing this, she said with genuine conviction, “because the government is preparing to announce bankruptcy.” Sigh!

  Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.

Bertrand Russell 

Sedition

se·di·tion

 noun \si-ˈdi-shən\

: the crime of saying, writing, or doing something that encourages people to disobey their government

Full Definition of SEDITION

:  incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.

I gather this definition of sedition is merely a joke, or at the very least is a “crime” that is never prosecuted. What could possibly more seditious than Ted Cruz’s attack on Obamacare and the credit rating of the United States? In fact, what could be more seditious than McConnell’s plan to make President Obama a one term President, and the apparent agreement of all Republicans to refuse to cooperate on anything that Obama wanted to do?

I don’t know if there actually are laws against sedition (I assume there must be). Not that it would matter much as laws have been so routinely ignored and broken, especially since Bush/Cheney, they don’t seem to matter much anymore. I find it impossible to believe that a minority of Congresspersons can willfully and deliberately close down our government, irreparably harming millions of innocent citizens, and go completely unpunished. I mean, really, you can go to jail for stealing a loaf of bread or a six pack of beer, but you can substantially harm millions of your fellow citizens and go completely unpunished? Does this make any sense to anyone?

I guess I lack the depth of intellect to understand how such things can be. And I also lack the patience to deal with such criminality. As far as I am concerned Ted Cruz and his more ardent dittoheads should be arrested, jailed, and tried for sedition, if not blackmail, extortion, and perhaps even treason.

I think our system (of government) began to break down in earnest in 2000 when the Republican “Brown Shirts” descended on Florida, pounding on doors and yelling in order to stop the vote count. They should have been immediately arrested and charged with sedition or something of that nature and instructed that such behavior is not to be tolerated in a (presumably) democratic society. Then Bush/Cheney, who actually did not win the election, shoved all laws aside and did whatever they wished, contrary to the wishes of the American public and almost all other nations of the world. Attacking Iraq was clearly a war crime, torturing also, war profiteering, killing civilians, and so on all followed as the new Republican Mafia (the Brafia) came into its maturity. As they have never been held accountable for their “Nightmare years” it is not surprising their party has followed in their tradition of lawlessness and crime.

Actually, I believe it was during the Clinton years when the Republican Party slowly began to morph into a genuine criminal conspiracy rather than an ordinary political party. Although they failed to impeach Clinton they succeeded in keeping him from doing whatever it was he might have done to improve our country. It must have been also during this time that our elected officials decided that what the public desired was basically irrelevant to what they deemed important (getting re-elected, fundraising, following their corporate masters, etc.). They have followed this strategy religiously ever since, pretty successfully keeping President Obama from doing anything at all to improve the lot of ordinary citizens, creating jobs, improving education, infrastructure, and so on. Their (basically treasonous) behavior has harmed our nation in the eyes of the world, and has started us on an increasingly downward spiral. I guess they will not be content until they succeed in closing our government down.

I do not have much hope for our future. If democrats could take back the House it might help at least a bit, perhaps we could then shrink Grover Norquist and his absurd anti-government groupies enough to drown them in a bathtub and return to actual governing. Personally, I think things are so ridiculous at the moment they are unworthy of attention, hence I no longer pay much attention to the “news,” nor am I motivated to blog (as you may have noticed).

  I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

Thomas Jefferson 

Laws

I am not a lawyer, nor a judge, nor an authority on laws, or even necessarily well informed about such things. But I am pretty sure there are laws against sedition, sabotage, blackmail, extortion, treason, hate crimes, the abuse of free speech (falsely yelling fire), threatening or attacking the President, slander, and most probably even about being a public nuisance. There do not seem to be laws against being an idiot in public or lying, probably for good reason as they would no doubt be violated by most everyone.

If, indeed, there are laws against sedition, etc., one might well wonder why they are not being enforced. There would seem to be little doubt that a minority of citizens, both within government and without, are actively engaged in one or more of such transgressions. In fact they openly boast about such activities and they seem to grow more and more bold with each passing day. The latest disgraceful behavior has them marching on the White House, insulting (slandering?) the President, waving a confederate flag, and so on. This demonstration was led by Ted (McCarthy) Cruz, mouthing his usual completely ridiculous nonsense, backed up by a few genuine crazies, and also featuring Sarah (the fishwife) Palin. Palin, I think, should be an obvious candidate for public nuisance number one, she holds no office, is not likely to ever hold another public office, is basically a no-brainer with a big mouth, and, except for a tragic mistake by John McCain, would still be basically a failed nobody governor of Alaska. I guess she might get some credit for stretching her 15 minutes of fame into an eternity of media attention (why she is still a media darling is a mystery to me). If it is true, as claimed by some, that Ted Cruz does not intend to run for Senate again, and is merely trying to use his current celebrity to catapult himself into the White House, he is obviously wasting his and everyone else’s time. I suspect his chances of ever being President are about the same as mine, and even less than winning the lottery.

So why do we continue to put up with these obvious quasi-treasonous crazies that are doing great damage to our country and potentially even to the world at large? Why should they not be charged with, at the very least being a public nuisance, fined and placed in media Siberia where they belong? Frankly, I do not know. Perhaps it is best to just ignore them, although the media refuses to do so, clinging to their every word and appearance as if they actually have anything of note to say. I guess it is easier to concentrate on them than actually pursue any real news, pursuing real news costs money and takes some effort. Thank goodness we now have Al Jazeera.

We no longer have a functioning government. Even the current negotiations going on in Washington have little or nothing to do with actually governing the nation, they mostly are arguments about who is going to get the most “spoil.” With Congressional approval basically in single digits they continue to ignore the will of the people (who might as well not exist at all) and just continue to bicker about which side is going to “win.” I am pretty sure we are now the laughing stock of the world, having exposed ourselves as unable to govern ourselves, let alone teach others the “joys” and benefits of democracy. No longer the “shining beacon on the hill,” we have become the fading embers of what was once a roaring fire, a whimpering memory of what once was and what might have been, a lost cause. And what is worse, we have no one else to blame, we brought it all on ourselves.  

Everything that everyone is afraid of has already happened: The fragility of capitalism, which we don't want to admit; the loss of the empire of the United States; and American exceptionalism. In fact, American exceptionalism is that we are exceptionally backward in about fifteen different categories, from education to infrastructure.

James Hillman 

Shutdown and Revolution

We pride ourselves with the notion “That it can’t happen here,” a revolution that is. That could well turn out to be a completely false and naïve belief. What do you think might happen, for example, if we have an extended shutdown and refuse to raise the debt limit? As we already have millions living in or on the edge of poverty, others working for starvation wages, most of the wealth in the hands of a very few individuals and powerful corporations, extremely unsettling conditions of government, and unrest growing daily, an extended shutdown may very well provide the one spark that could bring about a genuine and serious revolution.

Imagine, if you will, with conditions as they presently are, with Congressional popularity already in single digits, confidence in government at  an all time low, what might happen when millions more suddenly no longer get their Social Security checks, Medicare and Medicaid, banks are forced to close, savings disappear, and the 99% are hungry and with little or no hope. I venture to say those obscene billion dollar fortunes in the hands of so few will quickly disappear as they are confiscated by the starving masses for the public good. Corporate largesse will likewise quickly fade from memory as a world-wide depression sets in and people can no longer afford to coddle our military/industrial/political complex in the style to which they have become accustomed. Those multiple mansions owned by the Romneys and the McCains, and many others, the lush second and third homes, vacant most of the time, will likely be taken over by the homeless, hopeless, and the abandoned. Scenes from Dr. Zhivago will be multiplied a thousand fold, the obscenely wealthy will be spat upon if not tried as enemies of the people.

And remember, if such a scene were to occur in the U.S. it will not be a bunch of peasants using pitchforks, with some three hundred million or more guns in the hands of those who know how to use them it will be far more serious. And while it is true the government will have tanks and planes and drones and nuclear bombs they will be no more effective against the revolutionaries here than they have proven to be against the Afghans and the Vietnamese. If we cannot control gun violence now what will it be like when “comes the revolution?”

And don’t think those who will be responsible for the shutdown will escape accountability. As they apparently cannot be removed by the democratic process, when that process ceases to function as it already is, all bets are off. “Throw the rascals out” will seem benign when the real blood bath begins. It won’t be merely the few morons who bring about this disaster but also those cowards who stood by and allowed it to happen, fearful of retribution for actually doing their jobs. And once the revolution is in progress I would not like to be a Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, Glenn Beck, Malkin, Coulter, or others of that ilk, those outside of government who stimulated and encouraged the hatred and the shutdown, won’t it be great to see them in handcuffs, dragged off to the slammer where useless haters belong, wasting away in Slammerville without a mike to mouth their idiotic nonsense into? A long term shutdown might be worth it just for that alone.

I do not like to contemplate what might happen in the event of an extended shutdown and a failure to pay our debts. But I fear that our longstanding claim that “It can’t happen here” may prove to be merely a shibboleth, as empty of meaning as any other of the vast array of “Lies my father told me.” It perhaps might be true if we had a truly democratic society, but when democracy fails, as ours surely is, there is no telling what might happen. Let us hope that the nitwits we nitwits have elected to serve their corporate masters will not succeed in destroying us all in their greed and apparent eagerness for “the end times.” 

This is all pure speculation on my part, of course, but imagine for yourself what might happen when there is suddenly no government, no government checks for anything, no health care, no safety net, no law but that of the jungle.

 Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

James Madison

Words Fail

Now that Republicans have elevated dishonesty, hypocrisy, idiocy, and cowardice to previously unknown heights I fear our normal vocabulary is no longer sufficient to describe it all. For example, this morning I heard an interview on the radio during which one Republican (I did not catch his name) actually said. when complaining about Obama, “Our system is not designed for one party to refuse to negotiate.” That is, of course, true. But is he aware that for the past five years his own party has deliberately refused to negotiate with Obama, has refused to participate in governing our country, has announced their intention to defy the President of the United States at every opportunity, to destroy him, his legacy, and his administration? This is hypocrisy on such a grand scale it cannot be considered mere hypocrisy. But we have no word for such colossal hypocrisy. We can describe it perhaps as super-colossal hypocrisy, but only because of the absence of a word that promotes hypocrisy to a much higher level. Of course it is possible that he is simply unaware of what his own party has been doing for the past few years, but if so, he is super–colossally ignorant of reality, or he is, in fact , just super-colossally and deliberately hypocritical.

Similarly, the Republicans are now in the process of reducing reality to a level of nincompoopery never before seen. Many of them are arguing that if our government fails to pay its legally acquired bills that is really not a problem. This is carrying nincompoopery to the realm of the super-colossal, or idiocy to the level of the super-colossal, or stupidity into the realm of the unbelievably unbelievable. It is not entirely clear if their beliefs are merely the result of colossal stupidity or a deliberate strategy to destroy our government as their billionaire backers seem to want. In any case we now have assembled the largest group of super-colossal imbeciles ever assembled under one roof.

Republicans have also raised dishonesty to previously unknown levels. Politicians have always lied, but this approach to governing came into its heyday during the Bush/Cheney administration when telling the truth about anything at all was apparently considered taboo. This practice continues as those who lie know the media, controlled by their corporate masters, will never challenge them no matter how outrageous the lies. And so they tell super-colossal lies about Obamacare, about  Obama himself, about his birth certificate, nationality, religious affiliations, and “radical” political philosophy. It is not always easy to tell if they do this because they are so colossaly and abysmally ignorant, because they are hyper-colossal-racists,  or because they are rewarded for lying by their “minders.” They are relentless in their super-colossal attacks on everything Obama does, what his wife does, and of course they are super-colossally hypocritical about his vacations, golfing, and what-have-you.

When it comes to cowardice there is no precedent for the levels of it in the current Republican Party. They allow their party to be controlled by a small minority of super-colossally ignorant boobs with no real desire to accomplish anything other than the destruction of “government,” that  they were told by that super-colossal boob, Saint Ronnie the Moron, was their “enemy.” They are, by and large, “know-nothings” who have elevated know-nothingness to the status of political anarchy without understanding the meaning of that term. Republicans who claim to be more traditional, more moderate, more political responsible, cowardly stand by and allow these colossal morons to take over their party, fearful, I guess, that they might do something useful to save our nation from the clutches of Tea Party insanity (or lose their cushy jobs).

I find it difficult to believe that people can be punished for spitting on the street, urinating in public, possessing small amounts of a weed, stealing bread, driving without a license, and other such relatively minor infractions, but people who deliberately shut down our government, causing untold misery and harm to millions, perhaps even to the world-wide economy, cannot be arrested and charged with something, like perhaps treason, extortion, blackmail, racketeering, or even being public nuisances. It’s a strange world in which we live, I think we may need an entirely new vocabulary to deal with it. 

Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason.

John Harington

Me and Kati (5)

Well, Kati, our house guest from Tucson left on schedule. I think she might have stayed another day or two if you hadn’t  brought in the live bat which frightened her something terrible. True, the bat couldn’t fly, but it was still alive and still pathetically flapping its wings. Why can’t you leave your victims, dead and alive, outside, like Spencer and Midnight?

Our government is still shut down. It looks like it may be shut down for some time to come. The House took Sunday off, poor guys/gals, work so hard doing nothing but fund raising and causing more trouble. Maybe it’s better they took the day off as they don’t do as much damage when they are not in session. There are too many loonies there, Kati, absolutely bonkers representatives that just don’t believe in government.

Speaking of such things Kati, I’ve been thinking a lot about government. These “wackos” seem to believe we don’t need government at all, a belief so fundamentally demented it must have come from Saint Ronnie the Moron himself.  Not only that, insofar as they seem to believe government should do nothing whatsoever to help its citizens, if government does do something, like Social Security, Medicare, or whatever, they believe it is socialism. In their peculiar view of government I guess it is socialism. I wonder why they think governments evolved in the first place?  I’m quite certain that did not come about in order for a very few at the top to grow obscenely wealthy at the expense of the vast majority. It seems obvious to me that governments at all levels supposedly sprang into being in order to serve those they represented, at least they did in the beginning and for quite a long time after that. Somewhere along the line, for one reason or another some few began to get away with most of the wealth, either as Kings or dictators, or supposedly divine beings. Nowadays, Kati, we don’t have Kings, nor do we technically have dictators, and our leaders could not possibly be regarded as divine. But we do have the few greedy ones at the top with most of the wealth which they use to create even more wealth for themselves while demanding to take away even more from those who have far less. This is a result of a strange belief in capitalism, an economic system that allows such greed to flourish if not carefully monitored. The less it is regulated the worse it becomes until you finally reach the point we are at now, with those on top obscenely and disgustingly rich while those on the bottom are increasingly poor. This doesn’t matter to you, I know, Kati, as you are just a cat. However, try to imagine what it would be like if you killed all the birds and bats and squirrels and mice and didn’t allow any other cats to have any of them.  I know you can’t do this (and probably wouldn’t even consider it if you did think about it), cats may be killers but they aren’t greedy, and if you tried to do it the other cats would kill you (and you would deserve it). And I am sure you are completely unaware of the fact there are people who are unable to feed themselves let alone feed you. Of course you could probably survive anyway as cats have for so many thousands of years. Humans are not always so well equipped for survival, which is why they live in societies in the first place, societies that exist to help people help others, primitive socialists I guess, concerned about the well-being of others, a far cry from capitalism, basically the law of the jungle.

Who knows Kati, how and when the current shutdown may end. More importantly, how long will it be before the multitudes, the so-called 99%, will simply refuse to accept their increasingly lowly positions in the scheme of things. There are many signs now we may be approaching this revolution (or whatever you might call it). Unions seem to be more active, and even the non-unionized are striking for better wages. More and more citizens are protesting more “wars” that benefit only the wealthy and corporations who depend on endless wars to fatten their portfolios, protests of various kinds are becoming more and more common as citizens are becoming more and more fed up with government by and for the wealthy. Maybe some significant changes will occur if we don’t first blow ourselves up, die of radiation, or drown in our own filth. So, my darling Kati, keep a stiff upper lip, throw out you chest, be proud to be a cat, and hope you will never become as stupid, short-sighted, and awful as a human.

 As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind.

Cleveland Amory

A Nation of Laws?

I guess the only thing more ridiculous than our constant prattling about our “Exceptionalism” is our oft repeated claim that we are a “Nation of Laws.” The only thing accomplished  by such claims is to prove our exceptional arrogance and stupidity. I guess the claim about laws is true in the sense that we do have some codified laws, but we apparently are not very conscientious about enforcing them and seem to lack them in other areas of importance. Furthermore, laws in the United States seem to be applied differently depending upon who ignores them and who does not. For example, do laws always apply to Congress?

If you order a meal in a restaurant, consume it, and then refuse to pay for it, you are apt to end up in jail. But if Congress spends money on something and then refuses to pay for it, what happens? Actually we don’t know because Congress has always, in the end, however kicking and screaming, eventually agreed to pay their bills (as they probably will do again). But what would happen if this time they refused? Would those leading the refusal go to jail? Very doubtful, probably the worst that would happen to them is they might not be re-elected when the next election comes around, but even that cannot be depended upon.

One might think that surely there must be laws against shutting down the government, but apparently there are not. Or if there is they are obviously being ignored. It would seem that there certainly ought to be a law against shutting down the government, and those responsible for doing so and thus harming millions of their fellow citizens should have to be held accountable. I suspect there is no law about this because no one from the Founding Fathers up until recently ever assumed such a thing would happen, that a few politicians would shut down the government because of their personal obsessions or ideological beliefs. Of course there are laws against extortion and blackmail but they don’t seem to be considered worthy of attention. Similarly, we have laws against hate crimes. As there seems to be no real explanation for why some want to do away with “Obamacare,” other than it is called that, and Obama is our first Black President, perhaps this, too, might be considered a hate crime.

Of course when we have known war criminals still walking our streets boasting of their crimes, that involved not only constitutional violations but also international law, and they have never been held accountable, perhaps that sets a precedent for other such crimes as are still going on at the present. Then there are also the known crimes of Wall Street, blatant violations of law that do not get punished. Indeed, we seem to have evolved a mutual agreement between Wall Street and Government such that if they egregiously violate the law and make huge illegal profits they simply pay a relatively modest fine and stay out of jail.

It is also the case that, although Obamacare is the law, there are those who are trying to kill it by defunding it or by any other means they can. They are, in short, violating the law. None of them will go to jail for doing so. There are states that are blatantly violating laws respecting voting rights, they, too, will not end up in jail. Still others violate abortion rights, but unless they actually kill an abortion provider they rarely if ever end up in jail.

Israel violates international law with such regularity it has apparently just become “just the way it is.” The U.S. supports these flagrantly illegal acts no matter how terrible or illegal, and this situation goes on year after year with nothing done about it. And we, the U.S., violate international law with such regularity there might as well not even be international laws.

I find our claims of exceptionalism and being a nation of laws absolutely hilarious in their dishonesty and hypocrisy. They go hand-in-hand with our absurd claim to be “spreading democracy around the world.” The situation has gone so far by now that no one even expects us to follow the law, we have become, along with Israel, rogue states, the greatest threats to peace and prosperity that currently exist.

   The idea of democracy has been stripped of its moral imperatives and come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy.

Paul Wellstone 
 

The End of Universities

It appears that if the White House has its way Universities will simply no longer exist, having been completely replaced by trade schools. This has been a transition underway for quite some time and it looks like the end may soon be official. Slowly over time Universities have been quietly taken over by trade schools: schools of medicine, nursing, business, social work, law, journalism, schools that have gradually taken more and more funds away from the arts and humanities. The White House now wants Universities ranked according to how much their graduates earn. If this happens they will no longer be Universities.

There will eventually no longer be classes in art, English or other literature, history, sociology, anthropology, or even philosophy, as such subjects do not produce graduates who will earn much money. There will be no learning for its own sake, no emphasis on well-rounded citizens interested in anything other than earning money. Nor will there probably any research unless it is aimed at some obvious commercial end. This is already happening as more and more research in Universities is being funded by corporations who have their own interests at heart, not those of those who want to do basic research on other less commercial topics.

The search for knowledge for its own sake will be forgotten in the mad quest for profits. I am certain Universities did not begin with commercial applications as the major goal. They arose mainly during the great age of discovery when so little was known about most anything, including languages, aesthetics, ethics, morality, mathematics, sciences, etc., etc. People attended Universities to learn and to share their learning with others. While it is true that many things emerged from Universities that subsequently became commercially useful, that was not the sine qua non. Of course medicine and law were of interest, but they were not of interest simply for making money, students wanted to know about anatomy, physiology, embryology, and such because they wanted to learn about such things, not because they wanted to produce physicians and surgeons who could make money. And so it was with law, barely separate from philosophy and a legitimate study to learn about it and improve it, not to make lawyers able to earn more.

Liberal Arts institutions and degrees have slowly eroded, and the idea of a Liberal Arts education these days, if its exists at all, exists mostly for the children of the wealthy who can afford to send their children to small Liberal Arts colleges and do not have to worry about their futures.

This is all part of the anti-intellectual bias that has crept into the American ethos. Education has no value unless it can make one more money, and, indeed, intellectuals have no value, being regarded as “pointy-headed,” “nutty,” and eccentric. Teachers, too, are disvalued, “them as can’t do, teach,” and so on. And, of course, teachers are well toward the bottom of the pay scale. The number of people who read has apparently declined rather dramatically and I personally know people who proudly claim to have never read an entire book. “Book-larnin” is nowhere as near as valuable as “the school of hard knocks.” Television, too, has had a terrible influence on reading, and what began as a wonderful new tool for humans has degenerated into a true wasteland of drivel and nonsense. “Infotainment” is now the name of the game with our major television networks, actual news is pretty much a thing of the past (thank god for Aljazeera). Our schools are disgraceful dungeons of dreary disciplines, overcrowded, deteriorated, starved for funds, and pretty much useless from the standpoint of education. They do manage to keep some of the kids off the streets but the drop-out rate is exceedingly high. All this has not come about by accident or even neglect, the corporations and powers-that –be want us ignorant and fearful as we are easier to manage and control that way.

To value Universities on the basis of how much their graduates earn is absurd. You might as well throw away thousands of years of human knowledge unless it involves technology and profit. This is disgraceful and the fact that anyone in the White House even thought of it is even more disgraceful. We might as well change the inscription on our bills to “Ignorance is Bliss.”

 “War is peace. 
Freedom is slavery. 
Ignorance is strength.” 

― George Orwell, 1984

Salinger - book

This book, which purports to be a biography of the well-known author, J. D. Salinger, is perhaps more interesting for what it itself is than what it tells us of Salinger. It is certainly not your ordinary biography, consisting of quotes from dozens of people who at one time or another had conversations with Salinger, served in the army with him, lived with him, married him, edited him, was a child of his, a lover, or someone who merely observed him briefly at one time or another. It is, in a way, a ridiculous presentation. First, you have no way of knowing if the quotes are supposed to be verbatim (which they surely are not), which means they must have been at least somewhat edited. Second, and more importantly, you cannot know why only some quotes were selected and others were not. Virtually all of the quotes are more positive than negative, could there have been negative ones that were simply left out? There is little or nothing of Salinger’s childhood other than he was a child of partly Jewish wealthy parents. The book begins with Salinger’s experiences in World War II that were, beyond doubt, extremely traumatic for him, landing him in psychiatric care for a time and quite obviously affecting his life and writing thereafter.

Salinger wanted to be a writer at least from the age of fifteen. He felt that if he joined the army he would get the kind of experience he needed to become one. It is claimed he carried the first four or five chapters of his most famous work, Catcher in the Rye, with him during his combat experiences and would work on them whenever an opportunity presented itself. He was also working on short stories and submitting them to various magazines. He thought Hemingway was a great writer (as did most people of his generation) and actually met him on three or four occasions during the war. Hemingway was apparently very kind to him and encouraged him. Salinger’s stated goal as a writer was to have his work appear in the New Yorker magazine, a goal he eventually achieved even before Catcher in the Rye brought him fame and fortune, and perhaps ruined his life, or at least helped to turn him into a recluse for some fifty years of his life. Although he was indeed reclusive, how reclusive he truly was is not entirely clear. He seems to have been social enough on occasions when he wanted to be.

Salinger certainly was not reclusive when he began writing and his ambition was to become known and publish in the New Yorker. The success of Catcher in the Rye, that has by now apparently sold over 60 million copies, brought him such fame and fortune, and so many demands from his readers, he eventually had to escape, which he did, to a country house in New Hampshire, pleading that he was merely a writer of fiction, not a guru. He became obsessively concerned with his privacy which was apparently protected by his neighbors and by his wives until he died at 91 years of age, having published nothing for some fifty years. Although he did not publish during all those years he apparently did continue writing (for himself, he claimed), so there is now an inordinate amount of curiosity about just what it was he was writing (there are apparently several manuscripts to be published posthumously).

I confess to not having been a great fan of Salinger’s although I have read and enjoyed most of his work. I must have read “Catcher” in the 50’s when it was first published (1951) and although I’m sure I enjoyed it, it did not make an indelible impression on me as it has on so many others. As I read most of his work some time ago I do not remember it as vividly as I might wish so I am in the process of reviewing most of it. There is no doubt Salinger was a fine writer, with, as Hemingway told him, a “fine ear.” But I find some of the claims about his work to be somewhat questionable and I will comment further about this soon.

In the meanwhile listen to Ted Cruz and watch the Republican Party unravel in their attempt to placate the lunatics that seem to be in charge of it these days.

    “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” 

― Ernest Hemingway

Me and Kati (4)

Well, Kati, I guess you didn’t learn from your previous experience with the paint. You look pretty silly walking around shaking one paw after another trying to get rid of the white paint you walked in. I tried to keep you out of that room but you cleverly managed to get in anyway. And not only did you walk on the wet paint, you also sat on it! Lucky for you it’s a water-based paint. Now you’re a gray cat with a white bottom, at least for a time. You’re as bad as Republicans, just doing one damn fool thing after another. Now they are going to try to shut down the government because they can’t do something that is obviously impossible… defund Obamacare. And they’re going to try that stupid ploy again, threatening to hold up the debt limit, thus destroying the credit of the country. You know, Kati, there “oughta be a law.”

You might think (if you weren’t a cat) there would be a law against shutting down the government. I mean, after all, there are even laws against spitting on the sidewalks and stuff like that. I guess no one thinks shutting down the government is a big deal. Of course there are laws that might apply to what they are doing, like, for example, there is a law against extortion, precisely what they are attempting in order to get their way. Or perhaps the law against blackmail might apply. More importantly, there is surely a law against treason. I guess when that Jiminy Cricket look-alike, McConnell, asserted publicly that the Republicans number one priority was to bring down President Obama (and his administration), and they have tried for the past five years to actually accomplish that, it does not constitute treason (it seems to me very close to it). They would like us to consider this nefarious intention just politics as usual, but it isn’t usual at all. Neither the Founding Fathers nor anyone else ever thought there would be a case where one absolutely necessary element of a tri-party political system would simply refuse to participate. The minority party is supposed to cooperate in running the country, not deliberately try to destroy it. But what do I know, Kati?

Of course the way things are now, even if there are laws, there are those who refuse to obey them. Usually when someone breaks a law they pay a price, maybe just a fine, but more often they go to jail. Along these same lines Kati, you might believe it should be against the law to try to prevent certain individuals or groups from voting, but some states try to do it anyway. Of course you might think that money laundering and some shaky credit card schemes would also be against the law. Actually, they are, but nothing much is ever done about it. More importantly, it is common knowledge by now that the major Banks have engaged in all kinds of lawbreaking, but virtually no banker has gone to jail. You see, they steal a huge amount of money, pay a relatively small fine, with no admission of guilt, and then go out and repeat the performance all over again. Laws work differently for powerful White Collar criminals. Come to think of it Kati, maybe you should paint yourself all white. You might gain some privileges.

No, Kati, I like you just the way you are, a nice dark neutral all gray. You fit in perfectly with our all white Spencer and all black Midnight. And in spite of your being a girl you dominate both of them. Happily, there’s no glass ceiling for cats. So keep up your good(?) work (as you do endlessly) but stay off the @#!%#@##! paint! And also Kati, two dead birds in one day is disgusting, even for you. And don’t bring them into the living room! I know, I know, you’re just a cat, you’re not evil, and you do what cats do. Republicans, on the other hand, should know better about what they do, but do evil things anyway. Lucky for us, Kati, we’re not on food stamps, at least not yet, if they have their way we may well be someday. Oh, no, we can’t, because there won’t be any, and perhaps no government either, so won’t that make them happy? But that can’t really work, for if there is no government how will they pass anti-abortion legislation, force women to have vaginal probes, take food from the mouths of babes, and fatten up their already too fat, “fat cats?” What a quandary. Oh, Kati, be glad you’re a cat and not a Republican.  

Did St. Francis preach to the birds? Whatever for? If he really liked birds he would have done better to preach to the cats.

Rebecca West