Some Negative Energy to Process

As the Nation Turns 250

I am incredibly dissatisfied with the state of our nation right now, and I’d like to share some of those thoughts with you. I’m sorry for not putting out an essay on Monday June 1, but sometimes these things happen. This one ought to more than make up for the terrible loneliness you must have felt given my indifference to your suffering.

Platner, Paxton

As is our custom (see Constitution, U.S., Article 1 Section 3, as amended by the 17th Amendment), roughly a third of the Senate is up for grabs this autumn, and two particularly unsavory characters seem to be grabbing much of the spotlight. I do not care to go into the specific personal failures of Messer’s Platner of Maine and Paxton of Texas, as there is plenty publicly available information to convince only the most ignorant among us that neither man possesses the character, ethics, and morality necessary to serve in the Senate. No, the people of those two states—a pox on both parties—are responsible for raising two men to the precipice of service in the world’s greatest deliberative body—who are execrable, seeping pustules of misconduct and ethical failure. I cannot imagine being able to hold an intelligent conversation with ANYONE who believes either of these man fit for service. Oh sure, I’d get a lot of “whataboutism” and finger pointing about what the other guys do, but I’m talking about a real defense of these men as HUMAN BEINGS. Such is not possible.

Our political parties are failing us, and we as a body politic are failing ourselves.

The Ballroom

I think Donald Trump is right. I wholeheartedly support the construction of a proper ballroom worthy of this great nation and its enduring Constitution. My support for the President’s desire mirrors my support for the construction of a southern border wall, in which I have always been in favor. That support, for both projects, is consistent with my understanding of how our government works, and because I understand how that government works, I am left with the inescapable conclusion that the ballroom is illegitimate. Putting aside the fact that virtually none of the procedures for major alterations to buildings within our national patrimony were followed, and the fact that a major alteration to that national patrimony has been made without ANY input of the legislative branch, the fact that it is funded by cronies of the President (many of whom have —surprise, surprise—won contracts to build said ballroom) reflects terribly on the perception of our government not being for sale. The ridiculous notion of the roof of the building’s use as a UAV pad simply underlines the unseriousness of this effort, and the regard shown by the President for the simple fact that it is NOT his house, and while he may have a good idea for how it could be improved, HE doesn’t get to make those calls.

UFC 250

I hate mixed martial arts/ultimate fighting with the heat of 10,000 suns. The emergence of these spectacles suggest civilizational decline like few other variables. But I understand that many disagree with me, one of whom lives in the White House. Wrapping his desire for bread and circuses with his blustering, blundering love of construction, we have this monstrosity popping up on the lawn of the White House, soon to serve as the location for ugly blood sport.

What KILLS me about this is the use of “250” in the title, as if this tragedy were in some way connected to the nation’s upcoming celebration. It isn’t. It just so happens that the event is scheduled for—-here it comes—the President’s birthday! We are living with an 80 year old toddler in charge of us. Last year he had the Army conduct a parade on his birthday, this year it is a bouncy tent of inhumanity.

Don’t even get me started on the painting of the reflecting pool.

The Iran War

I was wrapped up in Republican national security circles for about five or six years 2011-2016, and the thing I tired of hearing more than anything else was the ridiculous, adolescent, braying of the isolationist crowd about GOP “forever wars”. The nation raised the leader of this braying to the Presidency in January 2017, and he continued to criticize his predecessors for their use of American military power. Here we are nine and half years later, and he is elbows deep in a war that is entirely offensive in nature, was not started in response to any attack or reasonable threat of one, and was planned and executed based apparently on some of the most specious operational thinking available. The suggestion that a decapitation strike was all we’d need and the mullahs would stand aside was faulty from the start, and Iran’s overall strategic position may be BETTER than it was when this war started.

But…as I’ve said before…no country on EARTH had earned a punch in the nose more than Iran, and I would have been foursquare in favor of military action HAD THE PRESIDENT DONE WHAT HIS GOP FOREBEARS had done, which is to seek the sanction of the Congress before going to war. He didn’t. He didn’t feel that he needed to. And now he’s trying to pin everything on Netanyahu because the Iranians didn’t roll over and play dead like he thought they would.

A pox upon all these cry-baby, forever wars, MAGA-ts, I’m glad you’re getting an opportunity to participate in what world leadership entails.

Murdering Drug-runners

We are up to over 200 suspected drug runners murdered on the high seas in the waters off Venezuela. That’s right. Murdered. These attacks should rightly be considered war-crimes, and I am ashamed that men wearing the uniforms of our Armed Services haven’t had the courage to just lay down their stars and walk away, choosing the coward’s way which is to wink and nod at manufactured political cover coming out of the White House. They know what they are doing is wrong, but they do it anyway because they think they can’t be punished for it. Terrible.

Conclusion

I’ll rise in a month and read the Declaration of Independence on the morning of July 4th as I always do, and I’ll try to think about this nation with renewed confidence and spirit, the kind that always comes from re-connecting with the great and good men who created it. I pray that “we the people” will get our shit together and start not only realizing that WE are the problem, but that also, WE are the only solution. Only through a great awakening of moral and ethical action can this nation arrest its—perhaps fatal—decline.