Thank you, America

"Fascism should more properly be called 'corporatism' because it is the total merging of corporate and state power"

 

Benito Mussolini, 1927 



Are we there yet, Daddy?

Oh yeah, kids.  We're there. You'd better fucking believe it.


Murray as Thompson
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A tip of the hat and a heartfelt expression of gratitude is in order for the inmates of Idiot Nation. You folks have made my job so much easier. For the people whose vocation  it is to call attention to the desecration of the American experiment in democracy, it will be a long time before any one of us has writers block. Of course, although the pen is indeed mightier than the sword,  it could very soon turn  into  double-edged pen. It's only a matter of time before people like us are stomped down upon hard. Wait for it.

Irony of ironies: As impossibly corrupt and incompetent as George W. Bush was to the foundations of this once great republic, by this time next year, we-who-bother-to-pay-attention will find ourselves nostalgic for the contemptible  little thug. Honestly, even during Dubya's reign of grotesquerie and terror, I never dreamed it would get this surreal. What is coming is no mere constitutional crisis; what is on the bleak horizon is a fucking constitutional meltdown. Remember, you read it here, boys and girls!
 

At the conclusion of the classic 1980 cult film, Where The Buffalo Roam, Bill Murray (portraying Hunter Thompson) proclaimed: "It still hasn't gotten weird enough for me". Thompson committed suicide in February of 2005, weeks after Bush's second inauguration. I only wish he could have lived to see the rise of Donald J Trump. I can imagine him saying, "Okay, this is weird enough, thank you very much".

 

Jeff Sessions

In the hours following the worst electoral catastrophe in this doomed nation's history, it was almost endearingly pathetic to read so many posts out on the internet (not to mention personal email messages to me) from those whom obviously hadn't been paying attention, vainly attempting to quell our fears. "Don't worry", they said, "He'll surround himself with good people!". Right. He's already put into positions of power Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions, two avowed white supremists. If fact, two decades ago the Alabama-born Sessions was denied a judicial appointment because the members of his own party felt that he was too vile a racist for the position. Today this man is Attorney General designate. I kid you not.

FUN FACT: When one is judged to be too bigoted for the tastes of the GOP, that person has set one hell of a new standard. And you think that the comparisons to the rise of the Nazis eighty-three years ago are too over-the-top?

 

During the campaign, Trump promised his moronic base that, once he was in charge of things, there would be no more corporate lobbying at the executive level of our government. In the days following the election he announced the appointments of these same lobbyists to run and control the very federal agencies that they have dedicated their careers to destroying. And the shit storm hasn't even begun.

 

To all of my friends who naively cast their lot with Trump (and, believe it or not, I have more than a few of them who did) do you still honestly believe that sending this sociopathic asshole to the White House was a particularly neat idea? Here's a little something you can take to the bank, folks: By July 20 of next summer, which will mark the six-month-point of this new administration (with forty-two VERY LONG months left to go!), every one of you will realize that voting for Donald Trump was the stupidest thing you ever did in your lives. I promise you that. This could very well be the point of no return. These freaks will be looking for their own Reichstag Fire as an excuse to suspend the Constitution. The Patriot Act was merely a grim overture.

This is going to end very badly. How's that for understating a foregone conclusion? Its all over.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
 

SUGGSTED READING:

 

Waiting for the Barbarians

by Chris Hedges

 

This needs to be read by everyone:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/waiting_for_the_barbarians_201611271

 "The rebels will be our hope."

 

In the meantime, get used to living in a nation in ruins.

AFTERTHOUGHT:

Some within the extreme right are now heralding the news that a constitutional amendment outlawing the burning of the flag is just around the corner.

Disclaimer:
Although  it is my belief that flag burning is a constitutionally protected expression of free speech, I always felt that it was a really idiotic, infantile form of protest.

At the moment this proposed prohibition takes effect, I won't be able to burn enough of them. In fact, my plan is to burn them publicly - in front of my house (I live on a busy, two-lane highway which should make things rather interesting). Now would be a dandy time to invest in companies that manufacture American flags. People will be buying them just to burn them. I'm serious.

Cheerio! Pip! Pip!