High Noon At The DC Corral

 

Americans by nature are a suspicious lot..  The cultural heroes are revolutionaries, outlaws and gun slingers.  Robber barons are heroes on the rise, but when they reach the point of tilting the table in their favor, the mass of Americans cast them as villains and break them on the rocks of history.

One need only look at Silicon Valley to see this in real time.  The Chipper Barons once championed freedom and the Common Man, now they are slimy billionaires protecting their turf and the culture is turning against them.  Soon, we will witness the collapse.

America began as waves of settlers tied of the entrenched systems in Europe and the unequal application of those systems to favor The In-Crowd.  The American Cultural DNA is the desire to be left the hell alone to pursue life, liberty and happiness.

That weltanschauung carried through to a revolution run out of people's root cellars and pubs.  Tired of working their fool hands to the bone to pay fealty to the Crown, they banded together and put down the world's greatest superpower of that era.

America still idolizes the Old West, a period, place and mindset of rugged individualism, where there were no laws, no taxes and no systems.  Just a man against the elements, making or breaking himself on the vagaries of Nature and the elements.  His successes and failures were his alone.

In this bit of Americana, outlaws robbed banks that symbolized the encroaching System.  They held up trains, which were the medium of encroachment.  They supported the gun slingers and hired them as the "law" West of the Pecos.  Americans love flea-bit characters whose only laws were fairness, unwatered whiskey and a level billiard table.

Americans will tolerate corruption when it hurts the Establishment, but they will not abide corruption from the Establishment.  Swindling the swindlers is poetic justice and absolutely fair.  Once a hero becomes the Establishment, they fall from grace and become the targets of the new Underground.

This is precisely what is happening in the US right now.  The 60s Counterculture became the Establishment, now the American Spirit is rising up with a new Counterculture to displace the old.

To the American mind, equality is abhorrent.  The idea of Socialism, Communism or Fascism is repugnant.  Americans, for the most part, know that these systems are the formalization of Elite rule over the regular working stiff, and that "equality" is a vile concept.

Americans love "fairness".  They want the same opportunities as the next guy, but they know that it is the individual's moxy and industriousness that makes one person richer than another.  In that old Calvinist mindset, if the playing field is level, then the winner advances on skill, perseverance and moral codes, not with an Elitist protection racket that favors followers over leaders.

As I have said many times before, Donald Trump is a symptom, not a cause.  Trump is widely seen as the classic American anti-hero, pulling himself up through a system that was arrayed against him, rough around the edges but with a heart of gold.  This is not a new thing, it is the image that Trump has carefully crafted throughout his entire public life.  Folks don't look at his politics or his persona, they look at his life story and see a man - rightly or wrongly - who suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and took arms against a sea of troubles...and won.

In the election of 2020, still underway, the average Joe (pun intended) smells a rat.  He knows instinctively that the mass media have lied, that the System is rigged, and that the alternative choice is a lying, cheating plagiarist (see 1988 election).  Biden clearly has no moral code, and Americans are repelled by that kind of character.  His success was at the expense of others, not their benefit.

I don't think a lot of people particularly like Trump, but they respect him - at least far more than his opponents.  He has been a consistent character who won by playing by the rules, while being better at using the rules against his adversaries.  He is the outlaw gun slinger turned sheriff.

Trump is the outlaw.  He is the classic American anti-hero.  He played the game, but wasn't part of it.  He built an empire, but didn't weaponize it.  He's a plain talker that sounds like real folk.  And so far, no one has caught him lying - about important stuff anyway.  We all know marketing is complete bullshit, and for the most part, we tolerate it.

Trump's popular image is that he is Jesse James, or Bonnie and Clyde.  He fights the Establishment and miraculously keeps surviving, while sharing the wealth with us little folk.  He is the hero hanging off the cliff right now, and the audience is starting to root for him.  They can't wait to tune in tomorrow to see how he'll get out of this one.

Trump sells himself as the Great American Underdog - with a private jet.

There is no doubt that Americans love their superheroes.  Many a fortune has been built on these particularly American figures.  The one that seems to resonate the most with the widest possible audience is Batman.

Batman has no superpowers.  He is wealthy, yes, but he channels his wealth towards leveling the playing field.  He backs the law and order crowd, but is not part of the law and order crowd.  He will take on the Establishment as fast as any villain if their corruption tilts the table.

Trump, at least in the American psyche, is Batman.  He's just a guy with a lot of money who knows where the bodies are buried and wants to root out corruption and re-establish fairness.  He's willing to take a few punches, and deliver a few as well.  He's an inside outsider, if we can conceptualize those poles existing together.

Keep in mind, I do not say the image is true.  Only history will decide that.  I speak from the position of a Casting Director or a storyteller.  I talk about image and marketing, which never have anything to do with reality.  Real or not, Trump is cast as Batman in the minds of Americans.  He is the anti-hero with nothing but his money and his wits - and more than 70 million Americans who believe the image - and who will turn on him in a New York minute if they feel betrayed.

Trump behaves like a man who has seen the final reel and knows the good guys win, no matter how bleak it looks right now.  Is he projecting an image, or does he really know something we don't?  He behaves like the movie character who gives a quick wink to the camera to let us know that it's not as bad as it looks.

For myself, I respect Trump as a master bullshit artist.  I draw a distinct line between bullshitters and bullshit artists, and he falls solidly into the latter.  I don't trust a single word he says, but I admire the way he says it.  It works - quite well judging by his wide base of support.

What will the outcome of the 2020 election be?  I have no idea.  Here's what I do know:

The media are lying through their teeth about pretty much everything.  They are contradicting things they said as recently as the 2018 election, or even what they said about Biden in the primary season this round.  Absolutely nothing the media say can be trusted.

The law favors Trump.  Title 3 USC 1, Sec. 1 & 2 clearly say that the people, governors and Secretaries of State have a plenary right to call the elections, but after midnight on Election Day, that right can be unilaterally rescinded by the legislatures if certain conditions arise, and they have arisen in all of the contested states.  This is the law that the Supreme Court cited in stopping the Florida recounts in 2000.

There is most certainly corruption and rigging in the US election.  For one thing, history tells us that all elections are corrupt to a certain extent.  For the most part, we tolerate it and go about our merry business, but when it is so egregious and obvious, as it is now, the old American level playfield outlaw psyche kicks in.  The Affidavit of Dr. Navid Kashavariz-Nia should make even the hardest heart and head want to know the truth, regardless of where it leads.

Finally, we know the character of Joe Biden.  His career has been marked by lying, cheating and plagiarizing.  He is on record as claiming to have leveraged a billion dollar load guarantee to the Ukraine in return for firing a prosecutor who was investigating a company his son worked for.  He has claimed to have three degrees, a full scholarship to university, and to have graduated at the top of his class, none of which have proven true.  His tenure as Vice President under Barack Obama is overflowing with evidence of misuse of government agencies and power to target "enemies," including Gen. Michael Flynn, recently pardoned by Trump.  That he would stop at nothing to rig an election is plausible and evidence is mounting.

In my estimation, the 2020 Election is quintessentially America.  A corrupt Establishment tilting the table in their favor.  The lone hero tilting at windmills.  Cliffhangers.  Mob bosses.  Fairness versus Equality.  It's all there, and this is why the nation is transfixed on the outcome.

I contend that the average Joe (pun intended) down in the trenches, beaten by imaginary viruses, threatened by Communist China, struggling to overcome adversity, is hoping, praying that Trump wins.  I believe Trump knows this and is orchestrating events for maximum catharsis when it happens.  

Watch any old classic Western film then scan the headlines and see if you don't find the same connections I do.

We're in the second reel.  The hero is down and things look bleak.  We are glued to our seats waiting for the cavalry.  Stay tuned, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

Confessions Of A Political Atheist

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” - Ecclesiastes 1:9

In the hyperbolic environment of a highly contentious US election and a global effort to enflame disagreements of every kind, the phrase "never before in history..." is being thrown around like grass seed in a spring breeze.  Hardly.

 According to the Generally Accepted Narrative (GAN) - my term, don't bother looking it up - human emerged somewhere around 250,000 to 350,000 years ago, which equates to million of generations.  In all that time, Human Nature has never varied.  Sure, the force, scale and technology behind our basic motives has evolved and grown, but given the same set of variables, the human mind will always arrive at the same conclusions, and thus the same actions.

In the GAN, great civilizations have risen and collapsed, some well documented, others mysterious, still other we may never know about.  From the Indus Valley to the extant empires and dynasties, nothing fundamental has changed - same pig, different shades of lipstick.

From Cain murdering Abel, to the major crime families today, corruption and greed have always existed and will always exist.  Wherever power and wealth accumulate, corruption and ambition will scale up to meet the resources made available by that concentration.  It is a rule as immutable as day follows night.

One thing is for certain, when someone says, "Never before in history...," they are either woefully ignorant or deceptive.  Yes, instant global communications may be new, but what is said and how it is used is as old as coveting thy neighbor's goods.

In the wake of the first Trump-Biden debate, I have heard numerous commentators saying, "We have never seen a president like this!"  They wail and gnash teeth over Trump's bombastic character and bemoan the collapse of America.  Oh, please!  There have been plenty of similar personalities in the White House.  Maybe they didn't have Twitter accounts, but they had printing presses, and the establishment media of the time were just as fawning or contentious as they are now.  Look no further than William Randolph Hearst, or the yellow journalists, or Benjamin Franklin's own pamphlets and his Silence Dogood persona.

As far as bombastic leaders go, history is replete with them - Jengis Khan, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Alexander, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong.  In the softer light of time, we may revile or venerate these individuals, but they are no more or less bambastic than anyone on the global stage today.

The accumulation of wealth and power in a central location will attract these personalities, the way sugar attracts ants.  Whether they are benign piss ants or dangerous fire ants is a judgment call in generations to come, but the nature and behavior behind the personae has been and will always be the same, so long as humans are human.

As a political atheist, I reject the notion that things are different today, than at any time in history.  I reject labels like lift-right or conservative-liberal.  The definitions of these labels is in constant flux and are meaningless when evaluating events current or historic.  To a political atheist, it is more instructive to look at cause and effect.

When surveying history, one sees patterns emerge, which we can use to define Human Nature - given an equal set of causes, we can expect similar effects.  This is generally called science, with a small 's'.  It is objective and fact based.  It is not passionate about a particular perspective, but tries to discern expected outcomes based on a given set of conditions.

The political atheist sees politics as a cycle, winging first in one direcction, then the other.  It is inevitable and its pattern can be seen throughout history.  Certain personality types emerge to address certain environments, because their skill sets are ideally suited to address the situation.  Humans know this intuitively.  They do not need to be convinced.

There is no winner or loser, there is only the Tao.

As my favorite author and pundit, Mark Twain, is recorded as saying, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."

I grew up in a highly politicized home.  My father, a politician, began his career as a Democrat, then switched to Republican in the Goldwater years.  I watched as society swug from the idyllic 1950s conservative, to the 1960s radical liberal, to the 1970s softer liberal, to the 1980s Reagan conservative, and on and on.  Just one country, just one lifetime.  The same has happened in every nation across the globe, and those patterns synchronize to create the Zeitgeist in ever larger cycles spanning decades to millennia.

As a political atheist, I do not use popularity or the majority to determine my beliefs.  Here again, I defer to the patron saint of political atheists, Mark Twain, "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."

Rather, I view politics as one person on a see-saw, running back and forth trying to balance the direction of motion.  The slight differences between cycles are what we can "progress," though the differences are vanishingly small and often erased in the next cycle.

Politics is essentially the choice between firing squad, hanging and the electric chair.  No matter what one chooses, the result is the same, it's just a matter of how much pain one feels getting there.

In effect, politics is choosing how much pain we want to feel getting to the next cycle.  Sometimes, the environment is so disturbing that we choose more pain to get it over with, but at other times the environment is serene and we choose as little pain as possible.  It is effectively choosing how fast we rip the bandage off the pre-existing wounds of the last cycle.

In the Grand Scheme of Things, who we vote for has little or no effect on the path Humanity is taking.  One choice may get us there faster, and another slower, but the destination never varies.

The Future is a cliff in front of us that we cannot avoid.  We can choose to crawl off or jump off, but "off" is the only viable option we have.  The political atheist has studied all the various roads taken to arrive at the cliff and realizes that Universe put it there, and no single choice along the way did anything but vary the scenery we passed along the way.

It may seem that politcal atheism is a nihilist Weltanschauung, but it isn't.  It is the Traveler's viewpoint of enjoying the process rather than fretting over the schedule.  Either way, the Traveler will arrive at a destination.  Whether the destination was the intended one depends on an infinite set of variables, all of which can be enjoyed for what they are.

In a tapesty, each stitch has no choice regarding its color or position in the overall image.  It likely has no clue what the overall image is, nor that it is a stitch in the first place.  It only knows where it is and can choose to fight that fact or accept it, but it doesn't change the inevitable.

As a political atheist, it is comforting to let go of caring about labels and which side "wins" or "loses".  Instead, it is entertaining to watch the mud-slinging "shit show" and the hand-wringing, and the punditry, and the sales jobs, all trying to control the piles of wealth and power.

It is far more instructive to enjoy the process - the view - along the way.  It is beautiful to try to see the colors and positions of the stitches in the overall tapestry.  It is certainly entertaining to watch the histrionics and hyperbole of the competing factions, knowing the futility and meaninglessness of it all, yet drinking deeply of the financial and emotional investment so many put into these things.

We appear to have arrived at one of those fascinating periods in history where all the cycles align.  From what I have learned, this seems to happen every 500 years or so.  We humans have already chosen our course by the collective actions of our species, and most without a clue as to what we have done. 

Adopting this or that label, ideology or candidate changes nothing but the experience each individual will have getting over the cliff.

Pre-Qognizant

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