And now the news

While the press tries to destroy a black female comedian for saying what we all know is true about the Trump administration's press secretary, the administration is deciding the fate of the illegal prison in Guantanamo Bay (they want to keep to keep it open, and send more people there) and Abbas Araghchi, Iran's deputy foreign minister, says "The Iran nuclear deal is no longer sustainable for Iran in its present form, without regard to a US exit."

Just another day, making America great again.

Tweetedy-tweet-tweet

On the sudden feminist sympathies Trump supporters have found:

F'ing fascists and their sympathizers. Does Margaret Haberman really think it's going to do her or the USA any good, to suck up to these people?

Suddenly, now that they are powerless, the Democrats are the party of the working class.

And Jeff Yang, citing Alisa Harris on homeschooling:

This is damning. 36% of kids pulled out of school for homeschooling were removed by families who have been accused of abuse. And 47% of all cases of child torture involve kids who were removed from school for homeschooling.

Meantime, on support of Trump from supposedly-moderate press outlets:

I think the publishers, as well, are in the tank for Trump. They are so afraid of the Democrats that they will support Trump, even if destroys the USA.

I don't know what is is about even the most moderate socialism that so terrifies a faction of the rich, but they are terrified.

Maybe I should start calling Twitter Screamer. There seems no way to scream loud enough any more.

Something Must Be Done

1. Something must be done.
2. This is something.
3. Therefore we must do it.
4. “Mission accomplished.”

Hitler Wasn’t Hitler

Or rather, Hitler was not as we imagined him. He was not, single-handedly, the creator of Nazism. He was not in himself a military or political genius. He was a crank with all manner of food and medical obsessions and he made foolish strategic decisions, which may have lost Nazi Germany its war of conquest.

The popular image of Hitler is false, and part of why we have this false image is that we very much don’t want to admit that Hitler wasn’t all that special. Some of this is a hangover from wartime propaganda; it was simpler to paint Hitler as a monster than say that Nazism was a complex evil. After the war, it was easier to teach people of Hitler the evil genius than to acknowledge and engage the fascism that had existed in every other Western power.

Hitler was, perhaps, the voice of the German id, and this made him persuasive. The Nazi Party was the first major user of mass electronic communications to drive a people mad and the ground had been prepared for that madness by the German conservatives who were very much afraid of losing their wealth and titles. The people who fought the war and ran Nazi Germany were the people around him.

If Hitler wasn’t Hitler – if he was, perhaps, the “screaming little defective” that H. G. Wells called him – then perhaps Trump is more like Hitler than we want to admit. The focus of a mass movement, rather than its brilliant creator, orator, and leader. And, especially, we don’t want to look at the history of the movement he has come to lead. As David Neiwert observed in his excellent book Alt-America, the movement that supports Trump came from somewhere, and the news of it was scarcely reported.

The conservative anti-Trumpers don’t want to admit that; if they admitted that they would have to face their complicity. The Democratic leadership doesn’t want to admit that; if they admitted that they would have to admit that they failed to see and respond to the danger. The major media don’t want to admit that; they would have to admit they played a part in Trump’s rise to the Presidency. Besides, their owners are enjoying their tax cut. Some of the left doesn’t want to admit that; they are afraid of the horror and afraid they might have to act.

So here we are. The gates of hell are creaking open. What will we do?

A Bit On Acting CIA Director Michael Pompeo's Extremist Christian Ideology

This was a bit I added to the Wikipedia entry on Pompeo, current CIA director. Unsurprisingly, it has been removed. A video of Pompeo speaking on his own behalf is, according to some Wikipedia editor, not a sufficiently reliable source on Pompeo's views.

Wikipedia: misinforming the masses since the beginning of the millenium.

Pompeo is a Christian religious conservative whose beliefs inform his politics. He spoke at length of how religion informs his political ideals on video at the Summit Church God and Country Rally 2015. In that speech he approvingly quoted the Robert Russell/Joseph Wright prayer which contained "We have worshiped other gods and called it multiculturalism. We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle." In his own words, he said "We are engaged in a struggle against radical Islam, the kind of struggle that this country has not faced since its great wars."

There is a great deal more in that speech, but to flesh this out, I would have to listen to the speech in its entirety, take notes, and research them, which would be a considerable investment in time.

We are rightly afraid of John Bolton as National Security Advisor. Perhaps we ought also be afraid of Michael R. Pompeo as DCIA.

War: Cui Bono?

(A cry of despair.)

@neeratanden, a long-time Hillary Clinton supporter, tweets: “I know we need to unite. But having gone thru the twitter hazing of 2016 where folks regularly attacked Hillary as a warmonger (and me as her supporter) and lauded Trump as some pacifist and then to see Bolton … well I’m furious. These people need to own up.”

I thought about this and agreed. Maureen Dowd and many others owe the country some kind of penance. And then I thought more. Hillary Clinton never had Trump's father issues or masculinity doubts. She is in no way as huge a warmonger as Donald Trump. But the Obama administration, during her time as Secretary of State, did support the 2009 Honduras coup, which installed a brutal regime that has lasted to this day. In a Clinton administration we would not be fearing the start of World War III. We would probably, however, see support of authoritarian regimes, and smaller wars and coups.

John Bolton joined the Maryland Army National Guard, rather than risk being drafted and sent to Vietnam. He wrote: "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost." And those who served, not because they hoped for victory, but out of loyalty? Chumps, I guess. For all his fine rhetoric, another white man who found his fine self to be more important than country. The attitude, if not yet the acts, of a traitor.

Why? Why do our elites think that war makes any sense at all? After Iran, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, two losses, and two stalemates turning into losses, why? After Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras? And who are the hawks? It's not just Bolton. Even "moderate" US foreign policy is brutal, if not the complete madness that Bolton advocates. We are haunted by the shadow of Henry Kissinger, even when he is not directly making policy.

Cui bono? Quid est beneficium?

"I want to know who the men in the shadows are / I want to hear somebody asking them why / They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are / But they're never the ones to fight or to die." – Jackson Browne, Lives in the Balance.

A Note on the Austin Bombings

We are up to six, as of this writing. Six.

I don't think this is stochastic terrorism, some random crazy. This looks to me like organized and planned terrorism. Now, terrorism is violence for the purposes of political propaganda. So if I'm right, we will see other parts of the propaganda campaign emerge soon. Anything is possible. A "false flag" operation. A call for a white supremacist uprising. Or something even stranger and more brutal.