Time to Care Again
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” - Gandalf
The January 6th hearings are happening today.
As a reminder, January 6th, 2021, was the closest America has ever come to collapsing since its inception. I understand the British ransacked the Capitol in 18 something or other but—at that time—very few Americans were cheering for the redcoats. The Confederates never filled the Capitol rotunda and busted down doors leading to the chambers of Congress. The Nazis and their allied Axis of Evil never got closer than the bombing of Pearl Harbor which, I believe, were on islands that were not even a state of the Union at the time.
On January 6th, American citizens, including our twice-impeached so-called president, stood at a podium and exhorted their fellow Americans to march on the Capitol building. It was the culmination of months of bitching and moaning and whining and litigating and lying and gaslighting—of epic proportions—in regards to the election in November. It was the culmination of the Florida retiree’s blatant order on national television during a nationally televised debate for his favorite pet domestic terrorism group to “stand back and stand by”—this was following both his opponent’s and the moderator’s request for him to ask the Proud Boys and other white supremacist groups to “stand down”. It was the culmination of deranged social media influencers, talking heads from major media outlets (notice I did not dignify them with the descriptor “news”) and blowhards with megaphones ginning up the Make America Great fanatics that never met an “outrage” they didn’t like.
That same day, the faux billionaire White House squatter hunkered down underground watching the insurrection he caused in real time on big screen monitors. His crazy daughter-in-law was videoed boogieing to the violence being broadcast and, if he boogied as well, it would have been with a white boy overbite and the faint shuffling of his feet.
Too late to make a difference, he went on live television to “implore” his fellow citizens to cease and desist their attack on the seat of American government. It was the meekest and weakest attempt to curtail a rebellion in the history of mankind. I believe he told his followers that he “loved” them, “wished them well” (just as he wished Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffery Epstein’s underage girls fixer, well after she’d been on the lam for months) and that they should “go home in peace.” These folks he’d ask to “stand back and stand by”, mind you, were out to maim and kill the vice president and members of Congress.
The hearings today were kicked off by members of the Capitol Hill police who were there to witness firsthand what this mad president’s followers were capable of. The tales were as harrowing six months later as they were the day they happened. The cop being crushed by the crowd and the door. The POC cop called a “n****r”, a traitor and an immigrant. The cop threatened with his own gun. Tasered—repeatedly—by his own taser. The cop under siege and accosted even when he wasn’t impeding the crowd’s progress.
It’s reality television and it’s designed to be a spectacle and there’s always the hope it will persuade some itsy bitsy percentage of the fanatics that their fanaticism has gone too far.
But I am doubtful.
I’ve been wistful for the days when I was uncertain how divided we are. The days before the internet when I could smirk and speculate about how many idiots roamed our country but I never really knew for sure. I’d watch the late night television host interview Americans on the street about the simplest topics and be flummoxed, slightly aghast or humored by the shallowness of their responses but you could always write it off to the late night show’s editing or sampling.
Today—after reading about those electing to not receive the vaccine despite overwhelming evidence that the vaccine is working and that, if they took it, we could all get back to normal sooner rather than later; after hearing about anti-vaxxers, from younger age ranges than previously, being hospitalized and pleading for the vaccine not understanding that they were a ‘day late and a dollar short’; after reading about a media figure basically saying to MAGA cult members that the word “gullible” is not in the dictionary in a thousand different ways and continue to catch them off-guard; after realizing how few “Republicans” dare acknowledge what is plain for all to see, even when the former guy is just another overweight American living in Florida; after reading about the teenage Parkland shooting survivor being unable to convince his FATHER that the shooting wasn’t a “false flag” with a bunch of crisis actors—it’s clear that idiocracy is not just a Grade B movie, it’s alive and well and living in every corner of America where Fox “News” is the default television channel.
It goes without saying this is a particularly bad era for this to be happening.
This is from an article AAR Steve Laboff sent me that I know most of you won’t take the time to read, so I’ll insert a small portion here. It’s a brief rundown of the running down of America:
Because anyone with a brain between their ears knows the status quo in America is not working. The evidence is everywhere:
Mass shootings almost every day
Inability to agree on basic concepts like the germ theory of disease
Half the population living just $400 away from bankruptcy
Widespread housing shortage forcing people onto the streets
Complete separation between white and blue collar jobs
A university education is required to get a good job, but is expensive
600,000+ dead from a disease other countries did a better job at fighting
50% of income tax revenues flow to a military that can’t win wars
Climate disasters burning and flooding whole towns
Shortages of critical supplies and wildly varying prices
Just when we need consensus, collaboration, cooperation and compromise, we get conspiracists on steroids, a credulous population, cruelty personified through charlatans and a confederacy of dunces.
We don’t have time for backsliding.
We don’t have time to fiddle.
We don’t have time to educate the ignorant.
We don’t have time to argue with—or understand—the willfully ignorant.
I’d suggest the majority of us, who are not idiots, buckle down and stop the inmates from fully commandeering the asylum. The first step in that process is paying attention to these historically important hearings, even if nothing comes of them, and making sure we come out of our stupor before the mid terms next year.
The other thing is to make sure your passport is up-to-date.
AAR Steve Laboff sent this article to my attention. It’s depressing.
Also, information hygiene for the infodemic.
I apologize—once more—for the hyoooge lags between columns. It will, most likely, continue due to a variety of factors such as the intense heat, extended river trips, family visits and love during the time of coronavirus. So, the forecast is spotty with a chance of every now and then, or as Robert Kolden likes to say about wine and just as meaningful, “pouchy, yet marsupial”. I’ll be back in full swing when the gloom of fall arrives to the Pacific Northwest. -JLM