Bill LaCroix: Remember Nuclear War?

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Remember Nuclear War?

Donald Trump Holding Court at Mar-A-Lago Grasping Golden Tomahawk Missiles While President Xi Jinping (in background) Runs Away

Leaked Virtual Brain Imaging (VBI) from Trump's thinking on April 6, 2017, compiled from state-of-art Ratheon Spying technology

Here's a quiz.

Do you know where your president was when he launched World War 4 (with North Korea and China)?

We know he launched World War 3 (against Syria, Iran and Russia) from his vacation palace at Mar-A-Lago (which, in Spanish means: "Sea-A-Lake" which is a perfectly normal name) while having a friendly visit with his friend, Chinese President Xi Jinping, which is perfectly normal for "the Trump Era"[i].

While some expert pundits who are very impressed with the size of Trump's missiles are not sure whether there have actually been any world wars launched from vacation palaces since the days of the Louis the 14th (the Sun King) and his Palace of Versailles a few hundred years ago, they are comfortable with the notion that a U.S. president vacationing through existential world crises of his own manufacture is, in a word, normal. In fact, everybody who's anybody is valuing their "down time" over our species' survival these days. It's all the rage.

Just look at Congress, the pundits point out to their consumers (us). Right after World War 3 was safely launched from Trump's overstuffed throne, and also immediately proceeding their criminal embedding of a corporate fascist into our Supreme Court, this corporate, fee-for-use Congress went on their own vacations, leaving Trump at peace to start the military gears churning toward World War 4 (against North Korea and China).

Pundits generally agree then, and it should furthermore go without saying to any premature Putin-lovers out there, that too many cooks spoil the broth, and that there is obviously no need for Congress to do any of that arcane and expensive advise-and-consent stuff. Why not save the taxpayers a few bucks then, and let the Congress just go home for a little golf or whatever, which of course should not include reaching out to their constituents (consumers) to gauge how We The People (consumers) actually feel about all of this perfectly normal stuff because, you know, reaching out is very, very expensive, not normal in the Trump Era and therefore no longer necessary.

So I want to be very clear here, that I also think all of this is very, very normal and that I really don't mean to blame those poor, overworked pundits and congresspeople for not doing their jobs during an existential worldwide crisis of their own making. After all, they earned their stock options just with their Gorsuch heist, don't you agree?

But something is bothering me, nevertheless, and I have to say that I'm still wondering where Donald Trump physically was when he launched World War 4 (against North Korea and China).

Did he actually have the audacity to launch two world wars from an overstuffed throne at his vacation palace?

I know it's just a technicality now, because all of this is so very, very, very normal. But what I'm wondering is this:

Are there any U.S. leaders not on vacation while they collectively threaten to fry our whole wide world including our children, grandchildren and hope itself?

All Hail the Sun King, then?

When America was Great
Atomic Annie bombing the Nevada desert because it chose to resist.

[i] Jeff Sessions, 4/11/17

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-sessions-border-immigration_us_58ecd3eee4b0ca64d9192852

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Why I Blog

Thoreau and Emerson had a discussion in May of 1846 about the Mexican War--our first war that set us on the course we still track today. Conquest of nation-states and the inevitable Imperialism that follows. Emerson counseled his friend that we can supersede the transgressions of a well-meaning State by the Muse. Thoreau wasn't so sure that the State was so well-meaning or that the Muse alone would be enough to supersede it. But he tried both the Muse and "other means" to our everlasting benefit. Civil Disobedience, in the American sense, has always been his child, in large part because he raised it to the level of Literature. "Other means" requires the Muse to be lasting and effective, and vice versa. How would anyone know what the hell you were talking about otherwise, let alone emulate what you're trying to do?

The problem with Progressives today, I think, is that we have been in the habit of letting other people--Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, Sun Myung Moon--tell our stories for us, people who do not mean us well. We haven't plugged our muse into our political discourse very much, and that's a big mistake. Mark Twain didn't make that mistake, and he was among the first American writers to use the new-fangled typewriter. Why do we children of Twain, Emerson and Thoreau make that mistake now with our new-fangled computers?

For all its faults, Corporate America understands that people are story-based critters, like it or not, and I think we progressives should like it. By definition, people make many important social (read: political) decisions based largely on who's the best storyteller. It’s in our nature, and Corporate Media is a classic example of how Nature abhors a vacuum. We’ve collectively created a cultural ‘narrative’ vacuum by allowing ourselves to be so easily entertained by—Corporate Media! And Nature hates that. She’ll allow the same garbage responsible for that vacuum (Corporate Media!) to be sucked in and to rattle around until it ruins our cognative motors before she’ll let that sad state of affairs stand. I'd ask any "America Firsters" stumbling on this blog and reading this far to consider: Rupert Murdoch is from Australia. Sun Myung Moon, now-deceased but whose creatures, the Washington Times and UPI still walk the face of the earth, was from Korea. The Koch Brothers, of course, were from the sheikdom of Texas. All of them were, and the living ones still are, so obscenely rich they apparently believed they own America simply because they paid for it, and we collectively let them define who among us are “real Americans”?! C'mon!

Although it helps to strive toward the goal, progressives don't have to be great writers, and I'm not claiming to be one. We simply have to acknowledge that we have the better stories and we’re sitting on our best ones. Our truest ones. Multi-national billionaires have better versions of American Liberalism and Progressivism than the real ones told by real Americans? Us? We shouldn't put up with that. Why do we?

Like any historic attempt, we need to find our Voice. Significant action will come only after our contemporary, progressive political muse matures, which it hasn't yet. Not to paint with too wide a brush, but too much of our positions have been framed in intellectual, almost-didactic prose, which, if you don't identify as an intellectual, means boring. Not all of it, just a whole lot of it, but never mind. If history's still a guide--and I hope it still is--there's hope, because when any progressive movement's Muse matures, it generally becomes the baseline for much of Western Civilization’s meaningful and therefore lasting literature. For example, "Mein Kampf" is still in print but I'll bet you'd have to turn over a lot of rocks to find someone to call it 'literature'.

So, this blog. It's a call, I suppose, to elevate our critical modern discussions out of Fox-news-landia back to where intelligent, caring Americans can find their feet and fight back, either with the Muse, by other means, or both. It’s not up to some politician to change the narrative. That’s up to us. So by definition we still have as good a chance as we ever had. Don't lose hope. It’s always been this way. At least in literate societies.

In other words, like Emerson advised and Thoreau partially agreed with: stories matter, and may the best Muse win.