Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Fun and Games at the Apocalypse

When Donald Trump first began ranting against the WHO, I thought he was talking about the legendary rock band and its socialist frontman Roger Daltrey, and not the World Health Organization. I mean, who in their right mind would ever rail against the World Health Organization right in the middle of a pandemic?

Well, eminently sane sociopath that he is, Trump is simply trying to deflect attention from his own bungled and belated response to the Covid-19 plague. His rationale, which like most propaganda does contain a grain or two of truth, is that the WHO had initially taken China's word for it that it had the outbreak under total control and not to worry. Taking a page verbatim from the classic authoritarian playbook, Trump himself proceeded to fly in the face of all fact, claiming that the crisis is under his total and absolute control, and not to worry.


And that got me thinking back to my original mistaken impression about exactly WHO Trump had been really ranting against. One of the rock band's biggest hits was Teenage Wastelandwhich does sort of describe Trump's cabinet of sycophants and trust fund kiddies, including his very own Jared and Ivanka.  And that hit song in its own turn got me thinking that T.S. Eliot's famous line in The Wasteland has never been more apt. April is indeed the cruelest month.


Congress cruelly ignored the pain and suffering of the masses while it allowed the Fed to secretly give trillions of dollars of public money to oligarchs and corporations under the grotesquely named CARES Act. They govern neither in prose nor in poetry. As far as they're concerned, the initials T.S. might as well stand for for Tough Shit. You're on your own, proles. Tighten your belts and share the sacrifice.


And even as they turn the screws, they pretend to be aghast that some of the $1200 "stimulus" checks will be delayed because Trump has insisted that the Treasury affix his own name to them. He had originally wanted to sign them himself. So terribly, terribly shocking to all those who cling to their norms and cynical acronyms.


But it could always be worse. Trump could have insisted on sending out fake Monopoly money with his picture on it, as contained in his own cheesy version of the Depression-era board game.





 Unfortunately, the initial groups of recipients will not receive Trump's limited edition collectors' checks, because they will get the funds electronically, by direct deposit.


The people to receive the paper checks are among the country's neediest and most marginalized  -  that is, if they ever receive the money at all. They first have to locate a computer with a connection in order to access the Treasury's internet portal to apply to be last in line for the money. They also have to provide a physical address. And with so many poor people facing evictions (if they are not already homeless) both internet access and existence in a physical building are insurmountable barriers for them, even in the best of the worst of times.


Too many people with no money and no jobs had already lost their modest Baltic Avenue homes back in 2009, when Barack Obama bailed out the banks and enabled the same criminal bankers to fraudulently foreclose on millions of mortgages before renting the plundered property back out to the evictees at exorbitant rates. And the people, still lectured they have to be in the neoliberal game to win it, just keep right on landing on Boardwalk and Park Place, and told that they can never, ever pass GO. 


But since the masses must continue to be entertained lest they emerge from Lockdown and riot in the streets, we now come to the long awaited sequel to that classic buddy comedy, The Three Amigos.


Because two of its leading men have a well-known "frosty but cordial relationship" and the third marquee actor is given very few lines of his own, and because the plot also has an element of horror to offset the treacle, the movie's working title is Bernie and Biden and Barry, Oh My!


The opening scene has Bernie Sanders juxtaposed with a near-aphasic Joe Biden. The Vermont senator urges his supporters to "come together" and vote for his good friend. In case you don't get the message, Bernie's side of the schizophrenic screen bears a prominent "Biden For President" logo.


The Revolution is cancelled. Long Live the Elite Task Forces!





In a subsequent interview with the Associated Press, Bernie Sanders goes even further and as much as calls his supporters traitors if they do not vote for Joe Biden. The Revolution is cancelled. Long live the corporate Democratic Party voter-shaming!


The next scene has Barack Obama appearing solo from an undisclosed location. Some say he's holed up at his Washington mansion working on his memoirs, while others speculate he's social-distance partying at his sprawling Martha's Vineyard oceanfront estate. But since this is, after all, nothing but a movie, my guess is the setting was the famous $35 million Shark House in Hollywood, where the Obamas reportedly stay whenever they're in town to perform their Netflix and Democratic fund-raising duties. (Joe apparently needs tons of money to catch up with Monopoly Man.) Discreet predator that he is, though, Barry filmed his endorsement of Biden in front of the standard anodyne photos and knick-knacks rather than in front of one of the home's built-in shark tanks.


The audience cannot be expected to absorb more than one stingray or electric eel at a time, can they?


And Obama doesn't get top billing in The Three Amigos for nothing. His acting skills and his timing are as slick as they ever were.


Anybody can deliver a political endorsement speech. But only an Obama can actually pull off smirking a political endorsement speech. He can barely restrain his own cynical grin as he praises the miracle of millions of newly jobless people still being able to enjoy their expensive employer-based health insurance right in the middle of a pandemic.


Warning: the following scene is not recommended for sensitive viewers:





 Since every disaster comedy buddy flick must have a leading lady - and every revolution needs its Marie Antoinette - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is here to add her own nurturing feminine touch, straight from her luxury vineyard estate outside of San Francisco.

  Are you hungry because the grocery shelves are bare and you don't have any money anyway? All you need to survive quarantine and fend off disease is a wildly expensive stainless steel restaurant-grade freezer. Nancy says that you, too, can order one straight from the Internet and then stock it with a small fortune in designer ice cream.

Let them eat Haagen-Dazs! The all-American brand might sound Danish, but forget Nordic-style single payer health care. The confection that Nancy Pelosi favors is pure American capitalism. "We're capitalists. That's just the way it is."


In other words: T.S.




As Eliot  wrote in The Wasteland: "I think we are in rats' alley/Where the dead men lost their bones."



  “What is that noise?”
                          The wind under the door.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
                           Nothing again nothing.
                                                        “Do
“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember nothing?


12 comments:

chuck said...

Oh, Karen...

The song's title is Baba O'Riley, not Teenage Wasteland. And I'm not even much of a Who fan.

Karen Garcia said...

Obviously I know nothing and remember nothing.

My kids were the Who fans and Teenage Wasteland -er, Baba O'Riley - was their anthem.

Annie said...

Worse still...

David Dayen
@ddayen

"Yesterday I reported that banks can grab the CARES Act $1,200 checks and use them to offset existing debts. Today, I'm reporting that @stevenmnuchin1 knew about this for 2 weeks, after being told directly by @SenSherrodBrown, and did nothing."

Annie said...

Speaking of wastelands, 'Living in the Wasteland of the Free' written and sung by Iris Dement 24 years ago is still true and even worse:

We got preachers dealing in politics and diamond mines
and their speech is growing increasingly unkind
They say they are Christ's disciples
but they don't look like Jesus to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got politicians running races on corporate cash
Now don't tell me they don't turn around and kiss them peoples' ass
You may call me old-fashioned
but that don't fit my picture of a true democracy
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got CEO's making two hundred times the workers' pay
but they'll fight like hell against raising the minimum wage
and If you don't like it, mister, they'll ship your job
to some third-world country 'cross the sea
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free
where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free

We got little kids with guns fighting inner city wars
So what do we do, we put these little kids behind prison doors
and we call ourselves the advanced civilization
that sounds like crap to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got high-school kids running 'round in Calvin Klein and Guess
who cannot pass a sixth-grade reading test
but if you ask them, they can tell you
the name of every crotch on MTV
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We kill for oil, then we throw a party when we win
Some guy refuses to fight, and we call that the sin
but he's standing up for what he believes in
and that seems pretty damned American to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free
where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free

While we sit gloating in our greatness
justice is sinking to the bottom of the sea
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYqDpL0YCvI

(can skip ad after 5 sec)

Jay–Ottawa said...


Aha! The message for today is "Task Forces." Task Forces to hammer together the all-important Party Platform, part Bernie's ideas, part Joe's. Compromise = politics. What struggles there will be to nail it all down by the time the convention convenes (or doesn't convene).

This is Bernie's last promise. That's how Bernie and the DNC intend to keep his left-leaning sheep in the fold (those sheep, according to CNN, mostly young and wet behind the ears). Dumb kids. Give Uncle Joe your paw. Good dog. Now your soul.

Look at the CNN screen for yourself. Biden's not drooling in front of the teleprompter. He's not as far gone yet as those millions of Americans amnesiacs who've forgotten his record--if they were ever aware of it. Those commoners, the viewers, are the ones who need immediate attention. Their forgetfulness and the Task Forces will cloud over Biden's true loyalties, his misogyny, his duplicity, his racism and his own loss of memory.

Just as Nancy Reagan along with the appointed handlers shielded President Reagan towards the end (few unscripted events and never let him out unless well-rested), Biden's team will protect Joe. Covid-19 will make a front-porch campaign credible. Then, as others have suggested, Biden will warm the big chair in the Oval Office––of course Trump will lose––just long enough to step down for his V-P. Everybody wins. (The elephant on the couch? That mystery V-P.)

To cap it all on today's show, CNN brings you the Master of Lies, Barack Obama with his message of unity.

"Everything's going to be alright. We are all Americans."

How beautifully he twists the words, the history, the flattery.

"Forget the past. Give way to the spell I cast and look forward, forward, forward."

Same old Obama: All frosting and no cake.

Annie said...

Here's Ryan Grim's take on why they needed Bernie out. Big money.

Biden could raise small dollars but nobody wanted to give it to him. So he relies on the super rich who can give giant checks to committees that coordinate with the party, but only in the general because of FEC rules. So they needed the primary to end so they could tap that well.

"People will die for that."

voice-in-wilderness said...

Don't forget that Trump has in his cabinet none other than Steven Mnuchin, who owns the informal title of "foreclosure king" for the performance of his OneWest bank.

Steve Beck said...

And I am partial to this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQAvRNZ15QA&fbclid=IwAR15nCM9hy7MbmRxD5tKkU0A7lI8vn_vGMOqHybJh_iQ-zrACUix-ndkl78

The Joker said...

An interesting opinion piece from a British point of view over at The Guardian, warning of the consequences of a disaster-capitalism-style response to COVID-19.

No, it's not nearly as critical of the phenomenon as Naomi Klein or Sardonicky, nor nearly as critical as is needed, but considering that Cohen definitely leans conservative, it's still interesting to see such warning begin to appear in the more widely-read press, and even from conservatives (a few of whom do seem to understand that FDR saved capitalism from itself):

"Beware a new wave of populism, born out of coronavirus-induced economic inequity.
Big businesses and governments are fast making themselves inviolable. There could be a backlash."
By Nick Cohen.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/18/beware-a-new-wave-of-populism-born-out-of-coronavirus-induced-economic-inequity

I doubt, though, that most conservatives (or neo-liberals) will heed these warnings. They think that all it'll take is a bit of "Together-at-Home" and mouthing "we're all in this together". If I hear the latter one more time, I'll scream.

Will said...

Good tune, Steve. The video was a little on the unsettling side, though. If Lindsey Graham visits me in my nightmares tonight I'm holding you personally responsible.

My song for today is from the late, great John Prine. Covid-19 may have taken him away but he lives on in our hearts forever:

https://youtu.be/JKPDFQRmG_M

Jay–Ottawa said...


There are at least two ways of crashing unjust systems: (1) pull the roof down on everybody's heads, like Samson; or (2) do nothing. By Samson's way I mean start a bloody revolution: you know, pitchforks and torches in the streets, storming the palaces and corporate headquarters, sabotaging the elite's systems, in short, rough stuff.

Real revolutions, those that go beyond the fiery words of broadsides, are high stakes gambles, brutish and nasty. They may start off as honest-to-goodness revolutions by the angry many against the privileged few but often end up as chaos under a Robespierre or a Mao and, not long after that, end up back under control of the old regime or an alternative elite, like Bonaparte, in a republic in name only.

In our day, the second option, consciously doing nothing with a purpose, holds more promise. By withholding labor and purchasing power as much as possible in coordination with others, we too can become revolutionaries, but nonviolent and very effective.

Because of Covid-19, we suddenly find ourselves part of the biggest general strike in history. We're worried about the virus killing us or the lack of money killing us, but the elites are even also worried about the stopped conveyor belt that normally bears our labor surplus and whatever else they can skim off our financial transactions into their pockets. As we sit on our hands in confinement, their wealth and power evaporate, along with our own of course.

How long will the strikers be able to hold out? Will the 99% discover their power and be able to sacrifice still more to reduce the !% into submission? Will the legislators and their bankrollers ever come to fear the strikers?

Our democratically-elected [cough] government has stacked the deck against the strikers with trillion-dollar CARES packages. The corporations are receiving billions directly during the shutdown while the strikers get peanuts to tide them over.

Despite all the caskets, the MSM is reporting the Covirus-19 may not be all that bad after all. Why don't we all go back to our jobs, and resume servicing our debts, paying the rent and buying stuff?

If you're Trump you'll incite mobs to storm state capitols where governors say it's not yet time to pay more attention to the economy.

Here's a UK writer who's angry at the whole picture. And he intends to stay angry. With apologies to Kubler-Ross, we should NOT be working towards a stage of acceptance this time around.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2020/april/staying-angry?utm_campaign=20200418%20icymi&utm_content=usca_subs_icymi&utm_medium=email&utm_source=LRB%20icymi

Erik Roth said...


JAY-OTTAWA: the two alternatives you posit are pathetic, which I suspect you likewise believe. At least you acknowledge that there there are more possible actions to change radically what must be changed immediately.
So, I repeat an earlier comment and add two more references for consideration, hopefully to summon the collective guts we need to do what must be done. Doing nothing is not an option.

RUMBLE with MICHAEL MOORE — Ep. 64: It’s About F*cking Winning (feat. Jane McAlevey)
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-xiwvb-889099e?utm_campaign=w_share_ep&utm_medium=dlink&utm_source=w_share
2020-04-08

We Can Defeat The Narcissist In Chief
We Can Stop the Apocalypse
https://therealnews.com/stories/donald-trump-narcissist-in-chief-organize-apocalyptic
April 17, 2020
Writer and activist Bill Fletcher tells TRNN's Marc Steiner that citizens should organize and not despair.

Pandemic Is a Portal: Arundhati Roy on COVID-19 in India, Imagining Another World & Fighting for It
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/16/arundhati_roy_coronavirus_india
April 16, 2020

So, imagine a better world, organize TOGETHER and fight like hell for it, or else hell we surely will get.