Living Large In Carson City: When America Faces The Present Edition

Posted on by technoscribe50: Gary Brady-Herndon

“Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools,

and those who dare not, are slaves.” Lord Byron

Well, it’s finally happened. America has gone to hell in a handbasket. Seriously, Trump has had to briefly retreat behind the wall he finally built – but around the White House. He continually skulks about like a demented little dwarf king whose most important task is to stamp his tiny feet and wail at his underlings and perceived enemies. The military is denouncing the president as unhinged and incapable of ruling America. He falters down a ramp and needs to hold a glass with two hands to drink water. Americans have taken to the streets to protest the murder of a black man whose most salient crime was being black in America. Even staunch Republicans are beginning to see that their support of Mad King Donald is about to bite them in the ass come November. Some are desperately looking for any way out of the web they spun and now find themselves mired in up to their eyeballs. And, of course, the Pandemic moves on behind the scenes at open beaches, restaurants. protest marches, and thurches across the nation.

One could argue that those mentioned above would inevitably turn on Trump simply out of self preservation. The military brass know that to follow illegal orders from the president would still be following illegal orders, making them complicit in any aftermath that would arise. Treason is not out of the realm of possibility if Trump demands something outside Constitutional parameters like using the military against American protestors. Republicans have to see that their chance of governing on any meaningful level is slowly being eroded as Trump’s poll numbers sink, and their reputations, suchs as they are, along with sagging numbers are at risk. These people exist on a plateau that the common American have no understanding of other than the fact we live in a double-standard universe where power is everything and not having it makes one irrelevant.

The crazy times we live in cannot be totally laid at the foot of the fence surrounding 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Average Americans are turning up in droves spouting racial epithets, supporting well-known racist dog whistles, and the police have gone bat shit crazy as they try to control peaceful protests with tactics that are anything but peaceful. Old white women seem to have a special propensity toward outright outlandish behavior. It is as if a Trump rally has metastasized and spilled out thousands of rabid, froth spewing demonoids onto the public landscape with marching order to make complete fools of themselves. I am not naive. I’ve lived in the deep south and East Texas. But really, where are these people coming from, and what reason do they have to live?

The thing that really startles me is the audacity that people exhibit when they make rude racists statements to people who are actually filming them. They know they are being filmed. They must know on some level that their faces and actions will soon be burning up the internet as their bigotry goes viral. Yet, not a day goes by that a legion of offenses are pasted across the news cycle of dumb-ass crackers acting, well, like dumb-ass crackers. It is more than a little disgusting and somewhat frightening to see these incidents play out in real time. What are they thinking?

But, therein lies the rub, they aren’t thinking. They simply feel emboldened to be who they always were under the cover of their white neighborhoods, churches, and fraternal police organizations. Of course, much of their new found freedom to proudly fly their freak flags can be traced back to Trump and his own racism, hatred, and white privilege. America can no longer laugh at Trump’s narcissistic acts of exclusion. Sure, we have all had a fine old time pointing out Mad King Donald’s lack of filters when it comes to dealing with issues of importance. It was funny for a couple of weeks, but here’s the thing. Three and a half years in, Trump is pushing his agenda of divisive hatred and racism more and more each day he sits in the chair of the presidency. He’s only getting started.

Okay, people can be obtuse and do ignorant things without thinking. Your average non-thinking American, especially white Americans with a sense of privilege, simply believe it is their right to lord their “specialness” over people of color or those less fortunate. But it is not just non-thinking Americans, more and more we see police officers doing much the same thing with the added threat that they are armed and prone to violence. Seeing the protestors subjected to mindless vicious attacks by the people who are supposed to be protecting them is simply unconscionable. Yet, America sees it over and over again on cable television as if this is a new normal we all have to accept or be drawn in to the violence and are condemned for standing up for what is right.

Does anyone really care what Meghan McCain says on The Voice? Does it matter that Tucker Carlson, a known provocateur, spouts idiocy and lies nightly on Fox News? Who wants to watch another second of Kellyanne Conway sniping away at Chris Cuomo on CNN? Or god forbid, anyone having to sit through another dreadful press conference by White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. The worst case scenario is seeing Trump seated at a long conference table with Mike Pence peeing his pants as he fawns over the supreme leader telling him what a great job he is doing for Christian values and white bigoted racists from bumfuck middle America and beyond.

And so it goes. Where it will stop, literally, no one knows. While Trump’s poll numbers are in the tank, there is no guarantee that he will not pull some crazy shit like, oh I don’t know, allowing Russia to steal the election for him. He’s done it before. Why stop now? This is the state of America as it stands today. Come November, there is no guarantee he will willing vacate the White House if he loses without calling on his goon squads, white supremacists, crazy old white women, and let’s not forget, the indubitably  rancorous basket of deplorables to take up arms and secure the government for him. He is that batshit crazy.

No place is immune in the country from the lunacy spreading across the nation. I live in a relatively small city in Nevada. Normally, Carson City is a happy, energetic place where the dregs of the old west makes reality a little bit bigger than life. There is an online chat group called something like Neighbors where people can post notes like Stray Dog Seen Running Free on Sierra Drive!!!. Or Firewood Available contact Earl. For the most part, it is a Mayberryesque existence were the only real excitement is when a herd of female deer and fawns happen to run into a band of young bucks on the backstreets of the neighborhoods. The excitement is breath-taking, but no real controversy.

Earlier this week, someone posted something to the effect of why is the only thing covered on the news shows about racism? The poster was tired of having to watch protestors making a commotion about racism. Of course, it devolved into a two-sided argument. On one side, there are the “neighbors” who have lived here all their lives and never saw a racist act. One person even said, I swear, that (and I paraphrase) there were 20 black families according to county records in Carson and they live, worship and gamble in our midst and never cause a problem. What scares me is in their postulating on racism, they are tone deaf to the fact that their comments are – racist. The rest of us who have lived elsewhere and have different life experiences can only shake our heads and wonder when will it ever stop.

Wackadoodle of the Week

Really?

Megachurch pastor tries to rebrand ‘white privilege’ as ‘white blessing’ gifted from slavery

 

Living Large In Carson City: Not the Same As It Ever Was, Not the Same As It Ever Was Edition

Posted on by technoscribe50: Gary Brady-Herndon

“Life in the Time of the Coronavirus”

The chickens have come home to roost. I’ve always loved that saying. It carries with it both a sense of comfort and foreboding. Kinda of like sheltering at home and social distancing. Certainly, life in America, well hell, the world is not like it was at the turn of the New Year. Some things haven’t changed though. Trump continues to lie, but his lies now have an almost melancholy ring to them. In recent days he has been admonished for exaggerating his response to the Coronavirus to almost Herculean heights. I mean he is lying about shit that doesn’t exist, and get this, the media continues to allow him to get away with it.

Now, he has decided in his superior brain that he is smarter than the scientist and medical profession, and that he understands the Coronavirus better than they do. Currying favor to the “I believe in a fairy tales” crowd (most of his base), he wants to end social distancing, so the churches can be full on Easter Sunday. WTF? I won’t degrade my intelligence by asking if this guy is being honest on this one. How can someone who claims to to be a “stable genius” form those words and let them slip out of his pie hole? Of course, America gave up trying to make sense out of what our president says sometime around the “Grab them by the pussy” video back in 2015 or 2016.

Let’s be honest with each other, the shit has hit the fan, and there isn’t much America can do but grab the sides of the roller coaster car and scream like wild banshees. The coaster is heading for the apex of the track, and all of America is about to go over the big hill headed for the bottom. Who knows at this point if it will be Armageddon at the end or will the nation bottom out and continue on down the track to better days. The people at Odds Watch (yes, there is a handicapper for everything) predicts there is a 94 percent chance of a recession in 2020. If you ask Trump, however, everything is fine. Rearrange those deck chairs over there, please.

Speaking of people lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut, some of America’s finest (not) Congressmen and women got that little extra in their paychecks that you and I weren’t offered. Ahead of the coming pandemic a couple of weeks ago, the Trump administration briefed a select few of our legislators who then went out and sold off stock that appeared to be vulnerable if things went south, and we all know they did at this point. That paragon of virtue,

Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, who as the Intelligence committee chair was sitting in on regular confidential briefings about the novel coronavirus, sold his stocks even as he publicly downplayed the risk of the outbreak to voters. Burr sold as much as $1.72 million worth, records show, with large amounts in companies that later would be slammed in the market sell-off.

. . . . . .

Among the stocks Burr sold was $150,000 worth of shares in Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, which has since shed two-thirds of its value. Burr also unloaded $100,000 worth of shares in Extended Stay America, whose stock price has been cut in half since then.  LATimes

It appears, however, that Burr was a bit hasty and left money on the table.

Similar stock sales were also disclosed in the public records by Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, whose husband is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. Loeffler, who also sold shares in companies that took a big hit, has denied any wrongdoing.

Loeffler and her husband began selling stock Jan. 24, the day she joined a private briefing for lawmakers by the Senate Health Committee that included administration officials leading the response to the outbreak. Her stock sales, totaling $1.2 million to $3.1 million, were first reported by the Daily Beast. In addition to the sales, Loeffler and her husband also bought between $100,000 and $250,000 in Citrix, a firm that makes teleworking software and has seen its value go up as Americans are directed to work from home. (my italics) LATimes

Americans have to admit that Trump has done one thing right. He has given the nation the best oligarchy that money can buy. I am over asking rhetorically or otherwise, “Do these people have no shame?” Okay, so I do still ask, but I don’t expect an answer. It’s pretty obvious at this point.

So, my wife and I are social distancing and pretty much sheltering at home. This morning I went out for the first time this week to be at Trader Joe’s when they opened. As I stood outside for five minutes waiting for the doors to open while a crowd of twenty or so fellow citizens milled around keeping our safe six foot distance from one another. As the countdown drew near to the doors flying open, the tension and anticipation was nearly palpable. Shoppers ahead of me and directly behind literally started leaning toward the doors. It occured to me that I should step aside and watch how things played out.

Sure enough, as an employee inside the store approached the door, bodies started vibrating all around me. It reminded me of those zombie movies where the undead are so drawn to human flesh they are literally pulled forward by some unseen force. When the doors opened, and these are grown people mind you, all pretense of social distancing went out the window as the group surged forward into a wad of teeming flesh jockeying for baskets and hand sanitizer provided by the store. In that one action, all plans of escaping contamination went out the window. I stood and waited for, literally, two minutes as the indoor crowd grabbed their baskets and flooded into the aisles. I strolled in alone and grabbed a cart and beelined towards the egg and dairy section first then on to the vodka aisle. A senior has to have his priorities after all.

One final note, I am an avowed news junkie. I get up every morning and read the AP Wire and RawStory. com. Interspersed during the day, I check in with CNN and various email posting from news outlets around the world. Granted, it’s a sickness, but one that gives me purpose.

The Coronavirus has upended my solemn routine. How much sadness and pain and suffering do the media outlets think America needs? Obviously, a lot if the cable news shows are any indication. Granted, Americans need to stay abreast of the changing environment as the virus progresses. However, I’ve found myself sitting down with my evening cocktail to watch the news only to change the channel to American Pickers or some other bland cable show within ten minutes. I know the virus is killing people. I know it is only going to get worse. I know Trump is a lying son of a bitch who will exploit this tragedy for his own benefit. It is just hard for me to watch it unfold hour after hour with no end in sight.