February 10, 2023
The War in Ukraine Will End Soon — With a Bang
Amidst indignant reactions to ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s revelations about the Minsk accords, worry about Americans “advising” Ukrainians en situ, and the back-and-forth of battle lines, it’s easy to forget what the Ukraine War is all about: the struggle of the United States to maintain its status as the world’s only superpower. More exactly, America’s attempt to suppress China as a rival superpower is the center of this tragedy.
China, allied with its back-door gas station Russia, is a nearly unbeatable foe. China’s seaports can easily be cut off if container ships are threatened against docking there. Its back door is another matter. So those hard-eyed folks in Washington, obsessed with the Wolfowitz Doctrine, need to eliminate or take over Russia. That is the sine qua non of the American strategy. Without this step, the strategy falls apart.
And the step needs to be taken quickly; already the confrontation with China is picking up momentum.
Hence the Ukraine War. As President Biden ad-libbed himself, “[Putin] cannot remain in power.” He later walked back the comment, but the slip obviously reflects thinking in the Oval Office. The nice way to remove him is to cause a Russian defeat in Ukraine and the resignation — or worse — of its president, replaced (neocons hope) by a pliable drunk like Boris Yeltsin. I would imagine that foreign-policy blobbers long ago convinced themselves that they would really, actually, in their heart-of-hearts prefer to do things this way. Because the other way is not nice.
Not nice at all: the other option is a nuclear attack. This is the difference with the nuclear standoff that has lasted decades: now Washington needs to attack. Invasion won’t do the trick. Russians would see it coming a mile off. And they wouldn’t stand for a conventional war on their territory because they know they would lose. Nor would they stand for another Yeltsin, nor a foreign ruler that broke the country into ten pieces. Long before the Yankees got to within a HIMARS-throw of Moscow, Russia would resort to nuclear weapons.
The savants of Washington know this, as they have always known that Russia could not possibly lose a conventional war against Ukraine: a table-flat country, on its border, with a third the population, and no real war-making resources other than an actor-president who — credit where credit is due — could sell sand in the Sahara. I would give him his bust in the halls of Congress just for sheer chutzpah.
A conventional attack being impossible, Washington needs a war right on Russia’s border to use as cover, as an excuse, for a nuclear attack. If you doubt their determination, remember that this reckless gambit in international affairs has been built through four administrations of neocons, who: 1) scrapped the relevant arms-control treaties; 2) overthrew a democratically-elected regime on Russia’s border; 3) pulled Europe apart from Russia, wrecking the European economy; and 4) literally destroyed the NordStream pipeline to make sure that the wreck stayed wrecked. I would imagine that even among older practitioners of U.S. foreign policy — Kissinger, Baker and their lot — those measures must have raised a few eyebrows. Biden’s crew is like fifteen-year-olds let loose in the foreign-policy candy store.
There are two ways, as I see it, of the war provoking a nuclear crisis: if the United States and/or Nato enter the war, or if, somehow, the Ukrainians mount a chemical- or biological-weapon attack against Russia, perhaps a dirty bomb. In either case, a crisis explodes, threats are made, and the U.S. has an excuse to unleash a nuclear attack on Russia — maybe with just a minimum of tactical nukes to impose a surrender, for only God and the CIA know what the Americans can actually do.
The point is to have a credible excuse for a first strike; without the Ukraine War, credibility would have been problematic — or at least more problematic; I have no doubt that, in a pinch, the same agile novelists who gave us the Kennedy Assassination and 9-11 could come up with a vivid tale. Whatever it is, the public will accept it, for they have been carefully cultivated by media stories about Russia: how Putin has turned into a dictator, how the LGBT community is persecuted, how Russian men fled the country to avoid conscription, and especially, repeatedly, poundingly like the drumming on a heavy-metal tune, that Vladimir Putin is a madman, a megalomaniac.
When the first images of blasted-out Moscow appear, President Biden will explain to a frightened world his heart-wrenching decision to strike first: the covers of Siberian rocket silos had been removed, the radio traffic was unmistakable, humint and e-lint confirmed suspicions, the Russian military brass had all suddenly slipped away to command centers around the country, and the crowning touch: President Putin’s recent mental state was “extremely concerning.” His statement need be but the merest window-dressing; the public, though appalled, will breathe a sigh of relief to know that this madman is no more.
President Biden would never do such a thing? This foggy-headed grandfather might be fully against World War III, but his foreign-policy team has by now taken the measure of him and knows exactly what to say in order to panic him into acting.
The foreign-policy crew fears a nuclear response from Putin? Hardly. They seem to have taken the Russian’s measure as well, and come away satisfied. Putin didn’t react when: 1) Nato expanded again and again; 2) Washington staged the coup d’etat in Kiev; 3) Washington (the only real suspect, either hands-on or not) sabotaged the NordStream 2 pipeline; and 4) when Washington assisted the Ukrainian government’s attack on the Donbass. Indeed, Putin waited through eight years of this violence to finally invade, having exhausted every other possibility to avoid war, and even then launched not a war but a lame “special military operation.”
Add all of this to the neocons’ wishful thinking that once Russia is out of the way, China will be a piece of cake that they will eat deliciously smacking their lips; and a nuclear first strike easily crosses into their realm of the feasible. Hitler and Napoleon would understand.
How strange that the drive to conquer Russia returns again and again in history; it is the West’s recurring nightmare, and it will be this time as well — though this aspect of the Ukraine story is strictly ignored by our slovenly mainstream media. So I leave the last word to Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, who said, “The past is indestructible; sooner or later everything comes back around, and one of the things that come back around is the project to abolish the past.”
December 22, 2022
Christmas Gifts that Count
Making sure I have all and that no one is missed,
And a long list it is, for both naughty and nice,
‘Cause unlike Santa I gift virtue and vice,
Hoping that each will in the box find a treat
That rewards the good and leaves the bad effete.
.
To President Joe I plan to give slippers,
Good thick warm ones with rubber floor-grippers,
To get him thinking that retirement would
Let him get away while the getting is good,
Before the Joints Chiefs need a first strike on V. Putin,
And the world’s in the hands of God and I. Newton.
.
I’ll give to Zelenskyy a calculator,
Not a normal one; he’ll need something greater,
With extra digits to his fortune add up,
Since selling weapons runneth over his cup,
His cup and the cups of his corrupt Ukie friends,
Who find a thief’s solace driving Mercedes Benz.
.
For ex-President Trump my gift is a file,
Not the Top Secret kind he swiped from the pile,
But a diamond-edge model, forged super-stiff,
Guaranteed without sweat to cut bars in a jiff,
Plus a putter and ball ‘cause he’s a golf jock,
(Which turn into a grenade and 9MM-Glock).
.
For European leaders heroin and coke,
Anything to get them to stand up awoke,
And stop them behaving like Uncle Sam’s dogs,
And object as one and throw into his cogs
A monkey-wrench by saying Europe counts too,
And has no interest in a new World War Two.
Banksy Makes a Splash in Ukraine
(Public Domain)
.
.
Banksy’s latest work, in Ukraine, must be a great lift to Ukrainians. He makes fun of President Putin being flipped by a kid and pictures an old granddad in his bathtub. In pictures of two gymnasts painted on bombed buildings, he contrasts human capacity for beauty with human capacity for destruction. But when Banksy finishes his artistic sojourn through Ukraine, I hope he’ll visit Washington and spray a few pictures on the walls of its white buildings, which would make a perfect canvas. Here are a few ideas for paintings.
For the wall of the State Department, a work entitled «The Negotiators.» We see the pre-war negotiations between the United States and Russia. On one side of the table, we see Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister, leaning forward on the table, a very serious expression on his face, his hands outstretched with the palms upwards: a gesture that verges on supplication. On the other side of the table, we see Secretary of State Antony Blinken grinning at his cell phone and showing something on its screen to the fellow beside him, who is cracking up laughing.
For the wall of The Smithsonian National Museum of American History, a work entitled «The Plotters.» Here we see an extraordinarily large work for Banksy, rising nearly two floors high. He seems to want people to take in some detail. It’s a mural with a jagged line in between its two subjects, indicating, as comic books used to, a telephone connection between them. On one side is U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, though she looks several years younger here. On the other is former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, also a few years fitter and trimmer. Both are talking on cell phones. Nuland is sitting at her kitchen table with a fat plastic cup of a soft drink in her hand, straw sticking out, and we see a bit of the golden arches peeking from between her fingers. The lifeless wrappings of a Big Mac lay on the table before her, and beside that a pile of her famous homemade cookies. She is speaking at this moment, Pyatt listening, and we definitely see the letter F puckered on her lower lip. Pyatt is in an office chair in his study, legs crossed and propped on his desk, and he holds a martini — yes, with olive — daintily by the glass’s stem, the very image of the elegant diplomat.
For the wall of the Pentagon, a work entitled «You idiot!» Here we see a three-star general talking on his desk phone, body launched over his desk, mouth jagged with rage. In the background, we see sections of the four NordStream pipelines. Two have one hole each, from which methane is bubbling out. A third has two holes, and the fourth is intact. We can understand his dismay.
For the wall of the White House Briefing Room, a work entitled «Dictator, Dictatee.» We see two reporters, a man and a woman, in three-quarters profile. On one side of the picture we see the stage and the lower few inches of the White House press officer’s lectern. The reporters are very intent on taking down quotes from the speaker; their fingers blur over the keyboards of their laptops. They are both in their early thirties, wonderfully good-looking, but what strikes us is how alike they are; they could be twins. The fellow’s hair parted on the side, and the woman’s hair falls lushly over her shoulders and curls together below her chin. Both wear watches, the man’s a little fatter than the woman’s. The man wears a tie, the woman’s lapels are open, and both wear white shirts with tall collars and suit jackets of a dark color. And now we notice in the background, looking along the rows of reporters, that they are all repetitions, mere echoes, of those two reporters. That old rascal Banksy sure knows how to make a statement.
Lastly, for the wall of the White House, a work entitled «Greatness.» Here we see President Kennedy giving his inaugural address, Vice President Johnson seated and squinting behind him. This painting has a caption, rare for Banksy: «Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.»
October 15, 2022
The Coming Nuclear Strike on Russia
Did you notice how oddly Russia’s recent use of drones against Ukraine was reported in the media? They weren’t any old drones, but “Iranian” drones. Every single headline I could find mentioned that they came from Iran. Either Acme Iranian Drones has the best PR people in the world, or every single editor on earth took their cue from American news outlets. Probably the latter, and now in western public opinion, those hairy, cantankerous ayatollahs are solidly fixed to the Russian side of the conflict. If the war widens, those chauvinist creeps are going to get nailed as well. This is a woke war.
This small detail of war propaganda shows how little opposition exists to America’s and Nato’s promotion of the conflict. Coverage is uniform and unwrinkled. No matter if Ukraine passes laws against the use of Russian language, no matter if they backed out of fruitful negotiations with Russia last March, no matter whatever. Ukraine wears the white hat, and Russia the black. America’s Deep State wants a long, juicy war in Ukraine, and it has organized a full-court press on public opinion to get it.
Not even the Nordstream pipeline sabotage troubles the patter of our news anchors. Against all logic, they insist that it was a Russian job. Among conservative commentators, Pat Buchanan is an admirably rare voice insisting that it was surely not the work of Russians:
“Why would Russia sabotage two pipelines it helped to construct, which give it lasting leverage over the prosperity of NATO Europe? Why would Putin sabotage his own strategic assets?”
He also makes the rarely-heard point that a Ukrainian victory over Russia might well provoke a Russian nuclear response:
“If Kyiv, with U.S. weapons and support, pushes the Russians out of Crimea and the Donbas, Kyiv pushes its war with Russia closer and closer to a nuclear war.”
This, Buchanan says, runs counter to the American interest in avoiding nuclear war with Russia.
Or does it?
Why has the reckless foreign-policy crew in Washington shoved, jabbed and steered Russia into a war and backed Ukraine with billions in arms? For Ukrainian wheat?
No, the goal is to see Vladimir Putin replaced as president by a discontented ruling class or the military. The clear trouble with this plan is that nobody knows what kind of successor will take his place. America got lucky with Boris Yelstin, but the next leader might well figure, like Putin, that he ought to put the interests of his own country first.
A surer way to get rid of Putin and his ilk is through a nuclear strike. If Russia finds itself losing badly, with Ukrainian troops overrunning what they consider Holy Russian territory, its response may well be nuclear, just as Buchanan says. This is just what the Washington mavens are waiting for: not a nuclear strike, but the clear prospect of one that allows the U.S. to justify its own first strike.
On the other hand, if Russia starts beating the tar out of Ukraine, then the possibility of a Nato entry into the war increases. Or as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said last week, “Russia’s victory in the war against Ukraine will be a defeat of NATO. This cannot be allowed.”
Once Nato intervention has started, Russian threats regarding its response would also justify an American first strike.
Not that justification need be any more than window-dressing. The western public is so thoroughly drenched – steeped, marinated, glowing — in anti-Putinism that citizens will accept it. The media will play its jester’s role of amplifying, embellishing, and sweetening the attack. The president will talk about how hard the decision was, how his wife opposed it, how he prayed after giving the order, how carefully and surgically the missiles were delivered, how quickly our forces rushed in to care for the survivors. No doubt a Hollywood pudding will quickly come out to celebrate American humanity. In time the horror will be ground down to a little nub of history, the public convinced that “Putin deserved it.”
Of course, there’s the tricky matter of a Russian counter-strike, but this scarcely clouds the plans of these daring young men on the foreign-policy trapeze. They have discounted it. They think Putin is soft. Over twenty years, his response to Nato expansions was little more than a shrug. His invasion of Ukraine was half-hearted, and only came after eight years of ethnic cleansing of Donbass Russians. Even the invasion’s objectives — “denazification”? — were limited. Putin may consider the demise of the Soviet Union a disaster, but he has not lifted a finger to rebuild it — with the exception of Crimea, which is about the size of Vermont. If he resembles Josef Stalin, it is in domestic politics, not international.
Yes, the “Blob” has Putin marked down as a pushover. They knocked over the pro-Russian regime in Kiev, placed middle-range rockets in Poland, targeted his generals, and surely sabotaged the Nordstream pipelines. More recently, they casually dismissed his alarm about a Ukrainian “dirty bomb” as if Russian intel were a doddering grandfather with Alzheimer’s. Blobbers figure his response to a nuclear attack would be meager and in any case would have to run the gauntlet of America’s fully-alerted defenses. Oh, this is totally dope win-win: Red Bull and high-fives in the Situation Room.
And they’ve got the whole political base behind them: neo-cons, neo-libs, Democrats, Republicans, the media, the Europeans, the Israelis, and the public long tantalized with the delicious prospect of Vladimir V. Putin sputtering his defense before an international court. You cannot fault the foreign-policy mavens on thoroughness: they did their homework and now have an unimpeachable mandate for conquest, or as they like to put it, “defense of the rules-based order.”
And with Russia neutralized, they can move on to the real prize, which is the subjugation of China. The one-China policy has been flung aside as the half-measure of wimps, and provocations grow more serious with each week. Which means that Russia, China’s gas station, must be taken in the coming months. Winter promises to be busy.
To watch international politics these days is to live in dread. It’s to remember the uneasiness of German and Polish Jews watching Hitler’s Nazis gain a little more with each election. It’s to stand in a North Vietnamese rice patty and hear the thudding of helicopters. It’s to listen to fleeing Rwandan villagers describe massacres against their tribe. It’s historical human dread replayed time and again. Only the skin color of the victims changes, and the bangs get louder.
September 30, 2022
How Mistakenly Nuclear War Will Begin
I’m glad that Putin finally issued a threat:
“You mess on my lawn and you’ll get what you get,”
If he’d said that before he might have thrown ice
On a lot of bold plans and made folks think twice
‘Bout blowing his pipelines and bombing his bridge,
Which must have troubled the czar just a smidge.
But Putin remained quiet for years on end,
While Nato expanded and Yanks placed a friend
On the throne of Ukraine and urged an attack
On the provinces east where folks felt bushwhacked
By the swift coup d’etat that chucked out their prez,
And installed a puppet who played Simon Says.
And so the soup bubbled for eight bloody years,
The Donbass getting bombed to discreet western cheers.
Here the reporters didn’t question attacks,
But asked only if Russia was sending half-tracks.
T’was only when Ukes massed to finish the job
That Russia stirred: a “limited military” lob.
But you can’t take your girl to a “limited” lunch,
And you can’t win a fight with a “limited” punch.
Well, maybe those work when you’re prez of repub’,
But people just laugh in their Wash-town posh club,
And plot yet another sweet target to hit,
Knowing they’re dealing with a Kremlin nitwit.
Now at last Vlad Putin has figured it out:
And is aiming his blows at both gut and snout,
But the damage is done: they’ve taken his measure,
And figure he’s chicken and will at their pleasure
Push the Bad Button and tick off a new box,
And prepare to put China up on the blocks.
September 20, 2022
The Coming Nuclear War: Pros and Cons
My foot’s gettin’ itchy, my hands a bit hot,
Thinking as I am about having but nought,
A cupboard as empty as A. Blinken’s eyes,
No honey for my toast or ketchup for fries,
Yes, the time has come to start freezing some beef,
Before nukes fly for our Geezer-in-Chief.
‘Cause fast in a corner is he puttin’ Putin,
With no choice but to start scrappin’ and shootin’,
This to the applause of the media mainstream,
Who think the cornering of Russia a scream,
And can’t get enough of Zelensky’s tough talk,
Since it’s his soldiers who must walk the tough walk.
This just needs a spark, it’s a question of time
Till the balloon goes up and rockets do climb,
And because in the West in this we’ve no voice,
Our media just baa and the pols give no choice,
The average fellow must for himself shift,
By the ton store canned food, if you get my drift.
Such great ramifications ram far and wide:
On finishing college or becoming a bride.
If the world’s gonna end, to paraphrase Woody,
I paid too much for my Ralph Lauren hoodie.
As to the mortgage, I may as well park it,
Since my fellow man’ll be out of the market.
On the upside, global warming won’t worry
Because CO2 trends will fall in a hurry;
No more hassling with social distance and masks,
Or painting the house or dull Saturday tasks,
Or curing addictions, paying the piper,
Since for one’s health one needn’t get hyper.
Yes, after centuries of the Age of Reason,
We’ll get to see live the last ep of the season.
Unlike our descendants who it all have missed,
We’ll know who’s the culprit and who gets kissed,
Have front-row seats on the Second Coming of Christ:
And know if it was true or just a cheap heist.
September 15, 2022
Why Did Trump Keep Those Papers?
You have to wonder why Trump kept those papers.
To show to his grandkids? To re-live old capers?
He’s greedy as hell but a klepto he’s not,
More like Diogenes with burgeoning pot,
Who like the syndrome never throws stuff away,
And lives in squalor that’s cleaned up every day.
Or maybe Melania had inspiration
Of papering walls with TS designation,
Which is now all the rage on the Upper East Side,
Where Cold War secrets are displayed with smug pride,
And if you wonder about Twin Towers destruction,
A Park Ave playroom will complete your instruction.
Did Trump choose the files, like “take this and take that”?
Whole boxes of papers: “Take the lean but not fat”?
And then there’s the one on President Macron
And the one on clemency for Roger J. Stone,
What purpose would they retain in Trump’s old age:
To give him a laugh or his resentment assuage?
But maybe we complicate this story too much,
Imagining revenge and blackmail and such.
It may be as simple as Sally’s seashell,
Like a guy towel-swiping from his hotel:
You don’t really need ’em, you have five or six,
But for prices like that they should throw in Netflix.
So the Soap Opera Trump continues to play,
Scheming Dems determined to put him away,
‘Cause they know they can’t beat him in ‘24,
Unless they run Tulsi with whom they’re all sore.
But now The Donald has himself his foot shot,
And with luck will avoid a cold cell and hard cot.
June 5, 2021
The Grassy Knoll Flu Conspiracy
I’d always given bats some credit for smarts,
Catching their dinner using radar black arts,
But their foisting on guys and gals a bad flu
Struck me as somewhat beyond their purview,
Not that they don’t have a few beefs with mankind,
Who shrinks their habitat, a species Palestined.
.
The perfect flu, though, that’s a get-back too far,
A flu so well made, among flues it’s a star:
Infects without symptoms, kills only a few,
Harsh enough to your economy screw,
Makes folks so nervous they wash hands to the bone,
Wear masks that fog glasses in China quick-sewn.
.
Bat-infection, though, is now getting short shrift,
As among learned folks appears a new rift
In thinking with me that bats are too batty,
And don’t have the stuff to do something catty,
So now our thoughts turn to the Theory Lab-Leak,
From Wuhan, of course, since our labs are too chic.
.
But ‘round this theory wafts political con:
The very first hit were Chinese and Tehran.
Yankee intel had the first whiff of disas’,
Months before Wuhanites were coughing en masse,
And coming on top China’s SARS and MERS prob’,
Might sly bio-warfare be on the Yank hob?
.
If that’s the case, we just received an update
Of the panic boiling amidst the Deep State,
Of the envelopes pushed, the flu Grassy Knoll,
All planned to ensure that the good times still roll,
Which must make the Chinese dust off their Sun Tzu,
And focus their minds on the Washington crew.
May 15, 2021
War, The National Pastime
There are odd sayings that clothes make the man,
And empires are lost in the dust of Afghan’,
Though if you look close you can see what was lost
Is what could be called opportunity cost:
Investment in Kabul instead of Kentuck’,
Where lots of good people are down on their luck.
Down on their luck and quite willing to pardon
A defeat in Afghan’ if it means a garden
Of their own to hoe and a job that pays bills,
And sometimes attention to life’s aches and ills.
It might calm the shame of the army’s defeat
If it could be met in a house with some heat.
Yet lest our mighty Ruling Classes do fret
That shame will result in a nation upset,
I urge them to on the bright side consider
That the war has hardly been but a glitter,
A news brief, a blurb, blip sandwiched between
Kim K’s divorces and the need for vaccine.
Nor need they fret deep that it’s ‘Nam 2.0,
Since there hasn’t been much as far as I know
Of protest, pain, country-wide angst, despair,
Nor wistful speeches asking why we were there.
No, the country’s taken Afghan’ in its stride
Plenty complacent with the thought that we tried.
Anyone remember the Second World War?
Now there was a tussle with stories and lore:
If you needed to slip through enemy lines,
Why, you just changed your hat and took the name Kleins.
The bad guys were creeps and aggressors to boot,
Bombing Old Blighty, swiping Paris art loot.
Although then fought by all, a national quest,
Now war’s a pastime or a sideshow at best,
Fallen as it has from defense of democ’,
To reasons for feeding the Pentagon’s flock,
And woe is the country of which it falls ‘foul,
‘Cause ‘round here, win or lose, nobody will howl.
April 25, 2021
So America’s not Going to Rescue Ukraine — Right?
I’m assured far and wide, from every smart quarter,
By savants with arguments longer and shorter,
The U.S. and Nato won’t come to the aid
Of a Ukrainian hand so god-awful played
That attacking the Donbass provokes the ire
Of Vladimir’s troops and his jet planes and fire.
.
T’would be dumb, I’m told, and stupid to boot,
Just not in our interests nor for decent loot,
Illogical, ill-doable, and ill-conceived,
A slapstick scheme from the Three Stooges thieved.
Yanks and Nato supporting that kind of gaffe?
Get outta here, get a life, don’t make me laugh!
.
Fine and well, guys, and I try to feel better,
But I see some things that do my nerves fetter,
Like President Joe who fresh out of the gate
Insults the Chinese, and the Russkies does bait,
Like Tony the SecState who doesn’t quite say
Just what we’ll do if Ukraine makes a play.
.
Plus I see CNN looking for trouble,
Prepping the public for its hate to double,
And the Army looking for something to do,
With Afghan a bore and Iraq all a-hoo,
Contractors looking for the newest new thing,
R and D budget and the cash-box to ring.
.
And it’s long sunk in that we’re falling behind,
A fact in itself that’s a new axe to grind,
Promoting realists who say, «It’s now or nev’:
We can stay on top or can go down forev’,
And the first place to strike before taking on Xi
Is China’s gas station, which is run by Vlad P.»
.
So experts can write that Ukraine’s on its own,
And how at most we’ll vouchsafe them a drone,
And how all-fired dumb it would be to invade,
Be illogical, ill-doable and truly ill-made,
But what d’you expect of a hologram prez,
Who listens to Blinken and does what he says?
March 25, 2021
With Covid Where Will We Be in a Year?
With Corona where will we be in a year?
I look ahead wary if not with some fear,
For rare is a «normal» not shackled to «new»
To describe a state where there’s still much to rue,
Despite lines of cars and those willing sleeves rolled,
Our faith in high-tech so thoroughly sold.
.
The idea is when enough folks are jabbed,
And life without mask is finally rehabbed,
We can all go back to traveling on planes,
Screaming at refs and conversing on trains,
Kissing our honey and before going home,
Kissing another, since you know how lips roam.
.
It’s all fine and well, though I can’t repress frown:
Will Corona really take this lying down?
It ain’t called a virus because it’s a bum,
But because it dodges and ducks on the run,
And despite there being vaccines in clover,
Covid can’t figure the party is over.
.
‘Cause here and there you find folks twice infected,
Though in stats you rarely see this reflected.
Your cool new antibodies, some experts say,
Might not be enough or just get in the way
Of helping your defenses fight new infec’,
New strains thus getting a nice big blank cheque.
.
No, this ain’t over, despite all the hubbub,
More «new» than «normal» despite all the hand-scrub,
New strains, new dangers, and new rules and regs,
Hospital supply rooms stripped down to the dregs.
Covid ain’t stupid and will keeping throwing darts,
And making humanity use all its arts.
February 15, 2021
Imagine the Scrooges all sitting around,
Wondering from where could new profit be found,
Or new ways to contort the life of the earth,
With post-Crash business having used up its mirth,
And too much flowing to small restaurants and shops,
So how to give pipsqueaks a bust in the chops?
Another recession? New crash on the Street?
Been there, done that, and it was all too discreet,
But a virus, now there’s an idea with legs
To get us right down to the small-profit dregs,
And make people stay home and buy from Saint Jeff,
Bankrupt the little guy and buy up what’s lef’.
Political fallout might sink the Blond Jerk,
But who ain’t tired of his mouth and his quirk?
Yes, a worldwide virus might just be the thing,
To juice the balance sheets and give life some zing,
And how nice it’d be to see China take hits,
And feel what it’s like to be down in the pits.
From Taiwan to Texas, t’will be mask on mouth,
The Sudanese muzzled, both north and South,
The virus results will be A, B, and C,
And the whoopees for us be One, Two and Three.
Simple as that, tell us what could be cooler
Than a trill’ in the bank, Covid as ruler?
Can it be true this was all planned just that way,
The Masters of U thinking Fate held no sway?
There are theories, some smart, that such was the game,
And dishing on poor Chinese bats is a shame,
Or maybe with Covid the Masters jumped fast,
And molded events and as usual laughed last.
January 25, 2021
If There’s no Trust, the Social Contract Goes Bust
Still standing intact Joe made the inaug’
Took oath like a man and parade on the jog,
While networks proclaimed democracy did work,
Overlooking the odd electoral quirk
And that poor ol’ Bernie again got the shaft,
This Wile E. Coyote of Democrat graft.
Big Tech chipped in splendidly, keeping at bay
Skeptics decrying that Trump votes went astray,
Then doing a dark on Don’s social accounts,
Though hurting their own advertising amounts,
A gesture of patriots if ever there were:
Preparing our Trump-less future for sure.
The coiffured MSM did their part as well:
“Joe’s past and pres’, why, they’re clear as a bell.
Hunter, all right, the boy trampled some roses,
It’s all out of context, a question of poses.
Who hasn’t cashed in on the name of their dad?
Ask Ivanka and Jared if that’s a big bad.”
Joe was sure right to call for new unity,
And remaking ties within community,
But always unity depends upon trust,
Without which the social contract goes bust,
And what Trumpists see is called “The Big Skew”:
The Deep State working to give Trump a hard chew.
And it’s going to get worse in this year alone,
As researchers throw to the Trumpists big bone,
And Democrats race to lock domination,
And Twitter decides who keeps commentation,
And the media insists our democracy’s cool,
And if you don’t believe, champ, you’re just a fool.
January 10, 2021
The Capitol Invasion: Is This Who We Are?
“This ain’t who we are” is what I keep hearing,
Regarding that crowd carousing and jeering,
That with aforethought malice stormed our Bastille,
And the Speaker’s cool podium picked up to steal.
Don Junior and Prez Joe proclaim this ain’t us,
Like kids caught smoking at the back of the bus.
If not us then who? is what I’d like to ask,
Are Cubans the ones to be taken to task?
The riot crowd looked like the guys at the bar,
Caps and chin-grass, dirty jackets ajar,
Philosphers who’ll bet you two shots of rye
That Trump gets rated with Abe Lincoln as high.
They’re guys who’ve grown up with Clint E. as Harry,
Who figure fast justice as work quite merry,
Best left to a man with his dame and a dream,
Not cops who arrive at the end of the scene,
Guys who cut crap and get a dirty job done,
By showing damn lib’rals a Magnum fat gun.
No, t’would be tough to find a better selection
A better sample or closer cross-section
Of Americus Politicus doing his thing,
Be it the hard rightist or loony left wing,
Looting a Walgreen’s to protest police states,
Raiding a Congress because Pence accepts slates.
Get used to this, folks, ‘cause it’s who we are,
People who riot or wish to from afar.
This is what happens when the rich get so rich
That squeezed good people will attend any pitch
That points out gov’ment as the cause of their plight,
So some of them double their fists and go fight.
December 27, 2020
What Does ’70 Percent More Contagious’ Mean?
Lately I’m reallocating my worries
To give just enough to all ugly flurries
That threaten existence on dear planet earth,
Like nukes and warming and the growing great dirth
Of water and fish and a mouthful of food
For all buckaroos of man’s mighty brood.
.
I hear Covid 19 now has a new cuz,
That gives the same symptoms and does what it does,
Yet clocks more contagious by 70 percent,
And thus in my budget for worry makes dent.
But before I skimp on big glaciers adrift,
I want to be sure I’m not giving short shrift.
.
I’m like, “70 percent” — what does that mean?
All right, less than 80, but 60’s too lean?
Is my walking down 70 streets less enough?
Am I still a marked man on the 30 I scuff?
Will 70 more folks in a hundred get C,
70 percent more space keep all virus-free?
.
70 percent less I suppose I could talk,
Though a blow to my friends and huge Facebook flock,
Do all my shopping in 30 percent time,
Or make others do it with Amazon Prime,
Leave the cinema before the last reel,
And miss Dirty Harry plugging the heel.
.
This 70-percent stuff sure wrinkles my groove.
I’ll bet it’s fake news or some shrewd Deep State move
To push the sheeple to do hands, face and space,
Or distract from the fact that Trump won the race,
Or keep us from joining the protesting spree,
‘Cause 70 per’ more are gunning for thee.
December 1, 2020
When I See Pundits in Full-Court-Press Mode….
I’ve been watching Joe Biden assemble his crew,
Happy of course the Blond Wonder is through,
His complaints laughed out of every court in the land,
Despite affidavits that fill Rudy’s hand,
Though sometimes a reluctant judge his wish grants,
And gives me electoral ants in the pants.
There’s rumor, allegation, statistical beefs,
Folks who saw giggling ‘tween electoral chiefs,
4 A.M. vote geysers for Joe in Wiscons’,
With hardly a squirt for Prez Don in response,
And that business of folks who gave votes to Joe,
But to down-the-list Dems the good old heave-ho.
Meanwhile the media insist it’s all clear,
The election is over, nothing to see here,
And get hot and bothered and give the bum rush
To those who assert any systemic hush,
But when I see pundits in full-court-press mode,
Methinks the full truth has still something owed.
Yes, I’m glad Don’s out and will much be relieved
When Electors give Joe the votes he received,
Though I’ve a feeling some many will carp,
And on Trumpist heartstrings play their sad harp,
’Cause the belief’s out there, far and wide, fore and aft,
That this time the Deep State gave Trump the shaft.
November 5, 2020
An Election as Empty as a Beggar’s Pockets
NOVEMBER 5, 2020
AN ELECTION AS EMPTY AS A BEGGAR’S POCKETS
I’ve heard of “a nation divided in half,”
And with fear and trembling watch sundry graph,
Imagine broad streets where the right comes to rumble
And whack lefty chanters and give them a tumble,
Or food courts downtown that erupt in food fights,
Brokers v. janitors in defense of their rights.
But now I’m thinking this divide fifty-fifty
Might just be explained in terms far more nifty.
‘Cause I really don’t think most folks are extreme,
Nor voted for more than just one problem-theme,
Or gave wider thought to the issues of day,
But filled out their vote with a shrug “What duh hey.”
They lacked but a quarter to in the air flip,
Since between candidates big difference was zip,
With the exceptions of each one’s style and flair,
Joe’s pleasant smile versus cloud of blond hair.
The choice beyond that was like Pepsi or Coke:
You voted your guy and got back to your yoke.
T’was more referendum than anything great,
A thumbs-up or thumbs-down on Donald Trump’s fate,
An election as empty as the pockets of poor,
Of which in his admin. we see more and more,
But thanks to Prez Don the extremes are inspired,
So it’s just as well that we’ve told him “You’re fired.”
November 1, 2020
THE CAMPAIGN FROM SPAIN LOOKS LIKE A PAIN
To watch the American elections from Spain is like watching your neighbors two houses down bickering over the back hedge. You’ve known them for years. Neither man is a dummy, but their egos are easily bruised. They aren’t bickering about anything in particular; they just don’t like each other and are really just complaining that fate has thrown them together. In different circumstances they could drink some amicable beers together.
Ten days till the U.S. election, nine days, eight days….Yes, we have the countdown here in Spain too, and the same desperation of reporters to report something — anything — different from the previous day. The president again campaigns without a mask on, and Joe Biden proudly wears his. Here’s the president at a rally, here’s Joe Biden leaving a hospital or factory after talking concernedly with the workers and learning about their problems. The chic Melania steps up to the mic here, and Jill Biden there, both women fighting for their men and American democracy.
In Spain, politicians have no glamour. Nobody cares much about their personalities or private lives. Hardly ten Spaniards in a hundred could tell you the name of the president’s wife. The couple has small children, I believe, but they are unknown. Spain has no cool Sashas and Malias.
That is one of the great strengths, however, of having a king: the president can remain a political hack who simply runs the government; all of the personal side of politics is absorbed in the monarchy. King Felipe’s wife, Queen Letizia, is a much-examined beacon of fashion, and their two daughters, now in their early teens, are endlessly analyzed for their hairstyles and clothes. It was recently noted that young Princess Leonor, heir to the throne, wore high heels for the first time, though her younger sister, Sofia, beat her to this milestone by a month.
In Spain, politics is pure ideology — more leftist, more rightist — but in America, campaigns are supposed to be all about The Issues, and it is a recurring mystery that American campaigns come and go without anyone talking about them. The real issues candidate, Bernie Sanders, could not overcome the blob candidate, having made the bad mistake of presenting himself as a democratic socialist, and the moment a candidate mentions “socialist” or “social” or even an inadvertent “sosh,” he’s doomed.
Biden’s stands on the issues are known in about the same proportion as Spaniards know the president’s wife’s name. Biden was just supposed to be the Democrat who could beat Trump. I wonder if that’s true. The Dems always lose when they put up a “normal” candidate, and Joe is as normal as cinder brick.
Another important oddity that strikes one from this distance: scandals don’t mean much anymore to the American electorate. Here in Spain, the previous president was brought down on a no-confidence vote when the titans of his party, though not himself, were found guilty on corruption charges. But in America, scandals flit across the TV screen like flies through the house, and people just shoo them away. Biden’s intervention in Ukraine in favor of his son — he bragged about it — would have disqualified him twenty years ago. Likewise, Trump’s calling Mexicans rapists is taken with philosophy by his followers.
Trump was absolutely right when he said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his people would still vote for him. Say what you like (or hate) about Trump, you have to admire that kind of acumen, and this from a guy who’s always lived thirty stories up in the air and rarely talked to anyone below the twentieth floor or the $250,000 tax bracket.
Political campaigns here in Spain are defined by law to last just a couple of weeks, though there is a certain amount of electioneering in what is called tongue-in-mejilla “the pre-campaign” period. But Spaniards don’t get to election day sick and tired of it all — well, maybe a little.
American politicians could emulate this practice: hold the election right after the conventions — say mid- to late-September — and inaugurate the new president on New Year’s Day. After all, can there be a single voter in America who has not already formed an opinion about President Trump? And all those “undecided” voters: when do they actually decide? According to advertisers, they often vote as suggested by the last ad they saw before leaving the house. Ninnies, if you ask me.
But finally The Day has arrived, though this time around we might not know the victor for a day or two. President Trump has decried this delay as being a big reason not to allow voting by mail. Me, I think it’s healthy. An exercise in public patience is not a bad thing, especially when the flu virus is making life miserable, and a remedy is still a long ways off.
October 13, 2020
WOULD THE FOUNDING FATHER WANT TO CHANGE THE CONSITUTION?
What would the Founding Fathers think of us now?
They’d look this mess and no doubt utter “Wow!”
Israeli lobby keeping Congress in check,
Government deficits and finance a wreck,
Deliberation given way to the merest ad-lib,
Though one thing’s eternal: political fib.
How they’d revile our foreign-policy sewers!
Kept from the eyes of civilian good-doers,
Designed for the dreams of the masters of U,
Who just like Alexander and Napoleon too,
Lust for the world, for entanglements galore,
Thousand bases abroad with room for some more.
The Founders’ great farmers to finance have turned,
The making of wheat, corn and buggies now spurned
In favor of numbers that tumble and swive
In a world in which two plus two can make five,
Or six or eight if the leverage you push:
Depending on how much you risk your sweet tush.
What would they make of surveillance domestic?
Of Clapper’s NSA or spy-drones majestic?
Sure on censoring news reporters they’d frown,
But what would they make of our papers dumbed-down,
Where news ain’t just news but opinions a-mix,
Sources unnamed to the few facts better fix?
But what diff’s it make if from all types of sites
Folks get the news or just check games and fights?
Watch Harry and Meghan, hear rock or Stravinsky,
Watch music vids or on TED Talks Lewinsky,
Get Reddit just for news that holds them in thrall,
Though such a people ain’t a people at all.
The U.S. Constitution was no doubt a good call,
But the Founders would sure read the writing on wall:
After 200 years we must adopt the new new,
And stop letting billionaires the poor to screw,
In the high-tech life of a disparate nation,
It’s time to question and change its equation.
August 30, 2020.
Kyle Rittenhouse Shows Us Why Guns Should Be Banned
I read both Mike Whitney’s and Spencer Quinn’s defenses of Kyle Rittenhouse, but I have another interpretation of events: the trouble was not so much Rittenhouse, but his gun.
For the record, my information relies on videos of the event and on the New York Times careful reconstruction of events, which Mr. Quinn calls “fairly evenhanded.” Be that as it may, here is my analysis of this awful episode.
Mr. Rittenhouse started the evening with other gunslingers guarding a car lot but unfortunately got separated from the others and some time later found himself in another car lot, which is where his troubles started.
He was clearly the focus of much wrath from others present, though I’ve seen no speculation as to why Rittenhouse inspired such anger. As he says in one video, his intentions — laudable — were to protect property and, as en EMT, aid the injured. His rifle was for self-defense. So why did so many people all at once turn on him? Did he punch or insult someone? Unlikely: this well-spoken young man doesn’t seem the type. Could it be his white skin? No, his assailants were white as well.
No, it was surely the rifle he carried: no grouse-hunting pea-shooter but an AK-47 worthy of an Hawaii-5-0 episode. It symbolized something that the others reviled, which was someone who had taken it upon himself to keep them in line.
And then the fateful concatenation of events: a shot fired, Rittenhouse whirls, a man runs forward throwing something at him, Rittenhouse shoots four times, and not at the fellow’s leg. He tries to call someone — a friend, according to reports — and then runs away.
The next sequences available show Rittenhouse still running, and lot of people are after him. But now it’s different: Rittenhouse has just murdered a man and, to any impartial onlooker, seems to want to put plenty of pavement between himself and the crime. People bravely try to stop this rifle-toting youngster. One woman carrying her handbag runs up behind him and swats him in the head. Rittenhouse would have done well to shout that he was trying to turn himself in to the police up the street, but again that massive gun would have hurt his credibility.
And then the climax. Rittenhouse falls, and from a sitting position shoulders his gun. It is not clear to me that he gets a shot off. But no matter: a pursuer overruns him, knocking him backwards. Another guy — not a pursuer — runs up from behind him and whacks him with his skateboard. Rittenhouse is now lying prone on his back. If it had been me in that position, I would have grabbed the guy’s leg, brought him down, and given back as good as I’d got. But Rittenhouse had his hands full — of an automatic rifle, with his finger on the trigger, the safety off and the bullets already bought and paid for. So he shot the man in the chest.
Then another fellow comes running up with a handgun, clearly to shoot this dangerous and panicked young man, but he draws too slowly and Rittenhouse puts an admirable shot through his gun arm. The others wisely scatter after this.
With great satisfaction both Whitney and Quinn note that all three men Rittenhouse shot, two fatally, had criminal records. If they hadn’t — if the third man had been a Marine captain with four tours of Iraq under his belt — this would have tarnished the story. But the three were what they were: dispensable scum whose deaths had no more importance than a fly’s, much like the baddies in, for example, Hawaii 5-0.
I sympathize with young Rittenhouse. He is obviously a decent guy but with a twisted idea of public responsibility. He can’t possibly be declared innocent, but his youth and the circumstances certainly extenuate his murders. He was clearly as much a victim of that gun he carried as the people he shot, both because it made him a target and because it conferred on him the idea that it was his only defense, rather than his voice, his wits and his fists. Which is a commonality among gun-carriers: skewed judgment. That weighty chunk of steel inevitably brings out the indignation, arrogance, and power in a person. Officer Rusten Sheskey had a right to pull his gun on Jacob Blake — which started the Kenosha riots — but then he put seven bullets in Blake’s back when one in the foot would have done the trick. There’s the rub.
Rittenhouse is a perfect example of why guns ought to be banned. Other shots are heard in the background of those videos of him, and I’m sure lots more will be heard in videos to come. Probably someday soon everyone will come to those riots packing a piece and a couple clips for good measure, and then it’ll be just one big jolly free-fire zone, Second Amendment guys on one side and “anarchists and communists” on the other, a final showdown between Right and Left, a video game come true. I’m looking forward to it — but I live in Spain, where guns are largely banned, the future of the white race is of no concern, and we watch with sadness while America descends into chaos.
August 1, 2020
.
.
The Ultimate Racial Fight: “Standard American English”
Haven’t had your fill yet of hot racial strife?
There’s lots more on the way to sweeten your life.
I’m talking this fall when the schools open doors,
And into their hallways a multitude pours,
This multitude consisting of girl and boy
And those whose pronouns are a trick to employ.
But more to the point, kids who speak different ways,
Like saying «We speaks» and use sundry odd phrase,
Which for sure cause Teacher to flash her red pen,
And let Johnny know this is fine for grown men,
Who swish long three-pointers while talking their trash,
But alas, the book rules: «we speaks» is too rash.
So to school does Johnny’s mommy come striding,
Indignant indeed and on high horse riding,
To point out to Teacher «we speaks» is correct,
And if she don’t think so she’s going to regret
The day she elected her worthy profession,
Which is also known as culture suppression.
Thus dinner is served for the folks who love fights
And consider «we speaks» as one of their rights.
The principal’s pulled in, and then the school board,
Which holds its next meeting before a great horde
That demands admission of «we speaks» as right,
And God help the objector whose skin is too white.
«Standard American English» is thus in the dock,
A committee quick formed to re-write its full stock,
Pitting top-hatted Defenders of Proper
Against those promoting an English of pauper,
Amidst accusations of bias of race,
For when push comes to shove, out fast comes that ace.
You think the George Floyd matter stirred the Big Pot?
Wait till our language is the center of plot.
Few knew poor Floyd but every George can fine speak,
And thoughts does have ‘bout what’s right and what’s freak.
So tune up your grammar, friend, cinch your vocab’,
What’s coming up soon is the final mob grab.
July 5, 2020
Putin Paid Bounties to Have Governors Misinformed about Covid-19
Those guys at the Times, they wouldn’t know a fact
If it walked up to them and their faces smacked,
I refer, of course, to the recent Big Ish:
That Russkies paid bounties to give Yanks the swish,
Cash on the barrel for Taliban slayers;
Single-shots only, guys, no Uzi sprayers.
As usual nary a word of it’s true,
As usual it’s all a big misconstrue,
Forced interrogation gone wrong from the start,
Ka-boom propaganda performed with some art,
But Dave Sanger et. al. just couldn’t resist,
Since big allegations are what long persist.
Allegations! Ya just gotta love ’em to bits,
When circulation blues have folks in the pits.
You say the story’s not true? Who in hell cares?
The point’s to keep hot those Vlad Putin scares,
‘Cause bounty he’d happily pay for a lark:
Compared to him, Covid’s a walk in the park.
Hah! The real story, which the Times overlooked,
Is the money Vlad paid to have governors shnooked
Regarding the dangers of easy infection,
Which if you’ve noticed has caused great inflection
In the number of cases where gov’s have relaxed,
And said only homeboys go ’round with face masked.
Yup, a snake in the grass, that President Poot’.
Betcha he planted the Talib’s tale of loot:
T’was just a distraction from his real intention
Of making our country one big detention,
So’s no one can vote come Day of Election,
And we’re stuck with Don, the Russky’s selection.
