Trumpism delenda est

That oldie about ancient Carthage now has a modern application. It ain't just the scrofulous boor, it's the entire cult that needs to be destroyed in order for any hope of continuing this little experiment in self-governing our ancestors set up way back in the 1700's. The way they wrote the Constitution gives us the means and methods to correct any maladministration that may come upon our country and we need to exercise that power to its fullest extent in this situation.  We dumped rule by a "king" because of the way that he treated our ancestors, why the fuck should we put up with a wannabe pint-sized shitty businessman with delusions of adequacy in the here-and-now?

I'm not under any illusions that impeachment is possible, what with Moscow Mitch McTurtle sitting atop the Senate like some hateful rabid warthog spewing toxic vomit on anybody that has the temerity to even suggest that Der Trumpenfurher is anything but the finest, the most bigly, Dear Leader our benighted country deserves.

We can do much better going forward, Trumpism delenda est is the starting point and one of the keys to that future is in the hands of all of us that are registered Independents. We can crater the plans of all of the greedy fuckwads that were unleashed when the Supreme Court legalized outright bribery and corruption in our politics if we stand up and jam the STOP sign up their asses hard enough to cause so much internal bleeding that death is the only possible outcome.

What was that thing attributed to Ben Franklin when asked what they gave us.... "A Republic, if you can keep it."

Time for some housekeeping.

Danny

Some words of honor and wisdom from Major (retired) Danny Sjursen. I've been following his writings for a long time now and this one strikes home quite fucking well. I've no idea how to get in touch with him to  ask permission to repost it here but, somehow, I don't think he'd object.....




These ever-so-logical conclusions should dismay
even the most apathetic American...

Maj. Danny Sjursen, USA (ret.)

It is undoubtedly my favorite part of every wedding. That awkward, but strangely forthright moment when the preacher asks the crowd for any objections to the couple’s marriage. No one ever objects, of course, but it’s still a raw, if tense, moment. I just love it.

I suppose we had that ubiquitous ritual in mind back in 2007 when Keith – a close buddy and fellow officer – and I crafted our own plan of objection. The setting was Baghdad, Iraq, at the start of the “surge” and the climax of the bloody civil war the U.S. invasion had unleashed. Just twenty three years old and only eighteen months out of the academy, my clique of officers had already decided the war was a mess, shouldn’t have been fought, and couldn’t be won.

Me and Keith, though, were undoubtedly the most radical. We both just hated how our squadron’s colonel would hijack the memorial ceremonies held for dead troopers – including three of my own – and use the occasion of his inescapable speech to encourage we mourners to use the latest death as a reason to “rededicate ourselves to the mission and the people of Iraq.” The whole thing was as repulsive as it was repetitive.

So it was that after a particularly depressing ceremony, perhaps our squadron’s tenth or so, that we hatched our little defiant scheme. If (or when) one of us was killed, the other promised – and this was a time and place where promises are sacred – to object, stand up, and announce to the colonel and the crowd that we’d listen to no such bullshit at this particular ceremony, not this time. “Danny didn’t believe in this absurd mission for a minute, he wouldn’t want his death to rededicate us to anything,” Keith would have said! Luckily it never came to that. We both survived, Keith left the army soon after, and I, well, toiled along until something snapped and I chose the road of public dissent. Still, I believe either of us would have actually done it – even if it did mean the end of our respective careers. That’s called brotherhood…and love.

I got to thinking on that when I read a story this week which was both disturbing, refreshing, and sickening all at the same time. A major opinion poll’s results were released which demonstrated that fully two-thirds of post 9/11 veterans now think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “weren’t worth fighting.”That’s a remarkable, and distressing, statistic and one that should give America’s president, legislators, media, and people as a whole, serious pause. Not that it will, mind you, but it should! It’s doubtful that US military combat vets – who are more rural, southern, and conservative than the population at large – have ever so incontrovertibly turned on a war, at least since the very end of Vietnam.

On one level I felt a sense of vindication for my longtime antiwar stances when I read about the study – in the Military Times no less. But that was just ego. Within minutes I was sad, inconsolably and completely melancholy. Because if, as a “filibuster-proof” majority of my fellow veterans (and maybe even our otherwise unhinged president) believes, the Iraq and Afghan wars weren’t worth the sacrifice, then consider the unsettling implications. It would mean, for starters, that the US flushed nearly $5.9 trillion in hard-earned taxpayer cash down the toilet. It means that 7,000 American soldiers and upwards of 244,000 foreign civilians needn’t have lost their ever precious lives. Hundreds of thousands more might not have been injured or maimed. 21 million people wouldn’t have become refugees. The world, so to speak, could’ve been a safer, better place.

Those ever-so-logical conclusions should dismay even the most apathetic American. They should make us all rather sad, but, more importantly, should inform future decisions about the use of military force, the role of America in the world, and just how much foreign policy power to turn over to presidents. Because if we, collectively, don’t learn from our country’s eighteen year, tragic saga, then this republic is, without exaggeration, finished, once and for all. Benjamin Franklin, that confounding Founding Father, wasn’t sure the American people could be trusted to “keep” the republic he and other elites formed. It’d be a devastating catastrophe to prove him right, especially in this time of rising right-wing, strongman populism in the Western world.

So consider this a plea to Congress, to the corporate media establishment, and to all of you: when even traditionally more conservative and martial military veterans raise the antiwar alarm – listen! And next time the American war drums beat, and they undoubtedly will, consider this article encouragement to do what Keith and I promised way back when. Object! Refuse to fight the next ill-advised and unethical war. Remember: to do so demonstrates brotherhood and love. Love of each other and love of country…

Stupid

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe. 
Frank Zappa

As is usual, Frank nailed it. As proof, all that needs to be done is look at the current (mal)administration scurrying around D.C. and the rest of the world spewing blather, bluster and bloviation in defense of the indefensible.

Yeah, there's a war on and it's way older than I am, the latest iteration of it comes in the Cult of Der Trumpenfurher. We really should make sure that this shit ceases by the next election and send this circus to all the various courts for disposition to eat up whatever money he really has. Advice to his lawyers: cash up front.

Wannabe Lord Preznit Dampnuts should have stuck to reality tv and shady real estate doings, he might have gotten away with it for a good while longer. As things stand these days, in the long run, he's Fucked no matter which way he squirms.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving excuse for a human.....