Everything Belongs to Me!

trump and his minions may not be fascists, but they have the attitude of fascists. In their minds, the rules, norms, and laws of a civilized society simply do not apply to them. They are entitled to do what they want and take what they want, at any time and place they want.

We saw this when trump boasted about kissing or grabbing women without permission. We saw it when he refused to pay contractors and workers at his properties. We've seen it many times when his campaign has used music without getting the owners' permission, even when the owners have explicitly told them to stop. We saw it when trump insisted that he could own and possess (and, it seems, display, share, or dispose of) confidential and classified government documents.

Again and again, he and his associates have shown their arrogance, their insistence on privileged status, their contempt toward others, and their disdain for the behavioral norms that make it possible for society to function. Like many fascists before them, they have succeeded in bullying, intimidating, and litigating people into submission.

Most recently, we saw trump and his entourage violate federal law and all expectations of decency, when they chose to film a campaign video at our most sacred national cemetery. Further, members of the group may have assaulted a cemetery official who informed them they were not permitted to film.

And now, in true fascist fashion, they do not admit to being in the wrong. They posted the illegal video they made at the cemetery. Instead of apologizing or simply claiming they were in error due to a "misunderstanding" or "mistake," they are angry at the news organization that first reported the incident. Fascists do not like public scrutiny of their actions.

A trump spokesperson has made a statement accusing the official who was assaulted of being mentally ill, and triumphantly declaring trump "the real Commander in Chief." Fascists are never subtle. Their message is clear: journalists who mention issues that make the boss uncomfortable are "bad reporters" asking "stupid questions." Anyone who tries to get in their way is unfair, crooked, mentally ill, or a liar.

They are above the law - in fact, the boss IS the law. He cannot be restrained or criticized, no matter what outrage he chooses to perform. The rest of us and our expectations of lawful behavior, our hopes for good manners and public dignity, our desire for accountability, are just irritating obstacles along the boss's path toward complete domination.

 

Jay

Years ago, I was involved in producing plays at a small theater in Pasadena. In that context, I met Jay, who was the theater critic for a local paper. Jay was alienated from his family, and therefore had written under a series of pseudonyms, until he finally had his name legally changed. He wanted to quit, and I wanted to write, so he arranged for me to take his place.

We became lovers, although we were never really in love. The old building where he lived had once been a hotel, the abandoned front desk with its wall of message cubbyholes still in place on the ground floor. The rooms had been converted to "studio" apartments with the addition of little kitchenettes. I never asked him if he owned the furniture or if it was included.

I tried to spend the night there, but his bed was too narrow and the neighbors were too noisy. He didn't like to stay over at my place because he didn't have a car.

A year went by. He quietly reconnected with his old girlfriend, and I, a bit less quietly, started seeing other people. There was no drama, no argument, no need to collect personal items from each other's apartments. We hadn't even left toothbrushes.

A few weeks later, he sent me a postcard asking me to call. I called, but the phone just rang and rang. Jay had no answering machine, he was out a lot, and he never answered the phone if he had company.

Sometimes something reminds me of him, and I wonder what it was he wanted to say to me.

 

More Fake News

As it turns out, J.D. Vance did not include a story about humping a couch in his book. I think there are several reasons this rumor was not quickly debunked and forgotten.

▶️ The person who started the rumor included page numbers, which made it seem authentic.
▶️ Even though the page numbers would make the story easy to fact check, most people haven't read the book and don't have a copy nearby.
▶️ J.D Vance is so unpleasant and unpopular, people were eager to believe that (a) he would hump a couch and (b) he'd be foolish enough to admit it in a book.
▶️ It's a funny story that invites a lot of jokes and memes.

 

I Took a Bullet For You

The former game show host could have handled the situation with dignity and honesty. He could have said, "Fortunately, I was not seriously hurt, but just received a small cut from flying debris. The real tragedy is that innocent bystanders were hurt, and one was killed." If he wanted to thank God in that context, he still could do so. If he wanted to brag (he always wants to brag about something), he could brag about going right out there and making more speeches despite the attempt on his life.

He didn't need to boast that he "took a bullet," something he obviously did not do. He would still have had just as many slavishly devoted cult members worshipping the famous photo, still would have gotten the same collection of retirees and unemployed carnies to attend his rallies.

But trump couldn't resist trying to make himself into a martyr, couldn't resist trying to make the story even bigger than it already was. He lies when he doesn't have to. He needs everything to be all about him all the time, and even when something is mostly about him, he has to make sure he crowds everyone else out, has to squeeze out every last drop.

Supposedly, this was going to make him a "changed man," but there is no change. The ego, the lies, the crazy stories, the ego, the ego, the ego -- it's all exactly the same. Supposedly, this was leading to a call for unity, but that never happened. The speeches are still full of the same us-vs-them mentality, the same old blame, insults, and ego, ego, ego.

 

The Latest Poll Shows Something Weird

Opinion polls are often designed to get the answers the pollster wants, by inserting bias into the questions. Similar questions can be asked in different ways. For example:

· Should Sally get a haircut?
OR
· Should Sally change her outdated hairstyle?

People responding to the poll may not even notice that it has been designed to reinforce the pollster's opinion. This pollster may have an agenda to make people think of Sally as old fashioned and unattractive.

· Should Sally wear more age-appropriate clothes?
OR
· Should Sally change her wardrobe?
OR
· Should Sally stop wearing dresses that look like potato sacks?

Even a person who likes Sally's look may find it hard to answer a simple yes or no to the biased questions. We see questions like this all the time in fake polls connected to politicians' fundraising efforts.

· Should schools avoid political bias in their lessons?
OR
· Should schools stop promoting the other party's extremist propaganda?

These polls never give you the chance to comment, "These are stupid questions."

 

Without Voter ID, This Happened

I used to live in a state that did not require ID to vote. Here's what happened.

The polling place was near my neighborhood. In some years, it was at a school or in a garage within walking distance. It was rare to wait more than 20 minutes, and often there was no wait. Upon arrival, I told the poll workers my name and address. They found me in the list of registered voters, and I signed my name next to my listing. Then I got my ballot and voted.

Would it have been possible for fraud to occur? Sure, if someone knew my name and address and got there before me (or if I didn't vote that time, which never happened) they could have pretended to be me. It would be very difficult to perform fraud like that on a large scale, because you would need a large number of of imposters successfully impersonating people who hadn't voted. It's a crazy idea.

 

The Things They Say

Imagine that President Biden is making a campaign speech. In the midst of the speech, he could be talking about almost anything: the need to repair and improve our infrastructure, the challenges posed by climate change, the high cost of health care.

It doesn't matter what he's talking about, because, suddenly, he mentions a well-known movie character. "The late, great, Forrest Gump," he says. "Have you heard of him, Forrest Gump? He's got that box of chocolates. If you sit next to him, he'll start telling you about a box of chocolates. Forrest Gump. Don't sit next to him or you'll hear a long story about his mother and the chocolates. Forrest Gump, incredible." And then he goes on with the speech.

If this happened, people would be all over social media, claiming that this is all the proof we need that the man has completely lost his mind, that he's obviously been senile for most of his life, and he's out of touch with reality. The mainstream media, pretending to be neutral, would put it in the form of questions: "Does he have a medical problem? Is it time for him to stop campaigning? Will his party tell him to step down?" They'd claim, "Alarms are going off in Washington as the president's strange remarks have his team struggling to explain what's going on," and so on.

Yet, oddly enough, when donald trump repeatedly digresses into ramblings about his beloved movie character, Hannibal Lecter, hardly an eyebrow is raised. For years, the lord and master of the Republican Party has made many very strange public statements. The news media rarely comment, and never suggest that his bloviations about indoor plumbing, batteries, wind turbines, or imaginary history are signs of mental deterioration.

The double standard is real. The question is why. Why do the news media, who were threatened and vilified by trump and treated kindly by the President, want to undermine the President's re-election campaign?

This vile T-shirt, promoting the lynching of reporters, was popularized by trump supporters after trump imitated Hitler and labeled the news "The enemy of the people." Maybe trump's threats against their lives has made reporters too terrified to tell the truth. Yet that would seem a good reason for them to prefer a President who has not incited violence against them.

"With regard to the forest, when trees fall down, after a short period of time, about 18 months, they become very dry, they become really like a matchstick. And they get up, y’know there’s no more water pouring through, and they become very very, uh, they just explode, they can explode."
- donald trump, September 14, 2020

"These millions and millions of people that are coming from prisons, coming from prisons and jails, you know there is a slight difference okay. They're coming from prisons and jails, mental institutions and insane asylums like Silence of the Lamb, the press always says why does he ramble about si- Silence of the Lamb, the late great Hannibal Lecter, he'd like to have you over for dinner, do you ever, don't do it, if he suggests I'd like to have you for dinner, don't go. But these are the people, these are the people that are coming into our country."
- donald trump, June 28, 2024.

“No water in your faucets. You ever try buying a new home and you turn on. You want to wash your hair or you wanna wash your hands. You turn on the water and it goes drip, drip the soap. You can't get it off your hand. So you keep it running for about 10 times longer. You trying, the worst is your hair. I have this beautiful luxuriant hair and I put stuff on. I put it in lather. I like lots of lather because I like it to come out extremely dry because it seems to be slightly thicker that way. And I lather up and then you turn on this crazy shower and the thing drip, drip and you say I'm gonna be here for 45 minutes. What? There's so much water. You don't know what to do with it. You know, it's called rain. It rains a lot in certain places. But, now their idea, you know, did you see the other day? They just, I opened it up and they closed it again. I opened it, they close it, washing machines to wash your dishes. There is a problem. They don't want you to have any water. They want no water.”
- donald trump, June 22, 2024

"Millions of people from places unknown, from countries unknown, who don't speak languages. We have languages coming into our country, we have nobody that even speaks those languages. They're truly foreign languages, nobody speaks them."
- donald trump, Feb. 28, 2024

 

The World is Never Enough

This story is a smaller version of what has been happening and is still happening throughout our country and the world.

A wealthy couple living in a very nice house above Camden Harbor in Maine noticed that their potential ocean view was blocked by their neighbor's big, beautiful trees. They decided to poison the trees. The plan worked, and the trees died.

In the meantime, the herbicide they use leached into a nearby park and contaminated the town's only public beach. The product that was used, Tebuthiuron, does not break down, so it continues killing plants for years. The only way to get rid of it is to remove the soil (tons of soil) or to try waiting for it to be diluted over time. The couple ended up paying a $1.5 million settlement to the tree owner and around $214,000 in fines and fees related to the environmental damage. They haven't been jailed, and apparently are still members of the Yacht Club. And they got the view they wanted.

It seems like just another story of people with too much money and a sense of entitlement arrogantly taking whatever they want with no regard for anyone or anything else. The same thing happens on a much larger scale, too, and it affects everyone. Big corporations do this to us regularly. By "big corporations" I mean the greedy, short-sighted rich people who run them. Assisted by corrupt politicians, they eagerly poison our air and water and contaminate our soil, just so they can make more money.

Like the tree poisoner who didn't care that marine life would be killed for years to come as long as he could get a little more pleasure from his mansion, the oligarchs and robber barons are willing to destroy the future in exchange for the temporary gratification of acquiring more and more paper profits. A CEO might be able to buy another $20 million yacht or another private jet, while workers and their children can't afford the drugs the oncologist prescribed. It's not just that they have so much while others have so little. It's that they are never satisfied, and getting more, always more, requires them to take away the very little those others have.

Read the orginal story here: Poisoned trees

Read about another pollutors' triumph here: Court supports pollution

Update: Here is a long article fromVanity Fair.