THE 'JAN 6 (2021) COUP' CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS - EVEN BACK IN 2015, SHOULDNT WE HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? (SOME DID)

This blog post is 12+ years old from 2009 with President Obama's first term. Our posts focus on national affairs and culture, and occasionally technology. Sometimes our observations receive a critical eye, but our 'pen' remains unblunted as we keep a sharp eye on the ways and directions of American politics and culture.  

THE THEME.  We must take advantage of this time of plague and political danger to sit, think, reconcile and reset America's path forward.   

There must be a national reconciliation of political parties and a re-defining of our national morals, ethics, and perspectives ...and especially we must commit to our future goals for the COMMON GOOD ... and then let those seeds grow for five years until we can how to make them better.  All of these qualities and thoughts seem to have been trounced during the grab-bag, treasure hunt Trump years whose tainted air, though dissipating, stubbornly lingers! 

In retrospect, and with perhaps just a little bit of mind-stretching, we might have imagined and posted a prediction of the January 6, 2021, near-coup. But we held back on 'going there' and even sketch-posting such a  scene as too...something. And anyway, wouldn't the mechanics of our government prevent such a banana-republic thing from happening ...here? But it did nearly happen here and right before our shocked eyes (but not a surprise to the cabal of 'important' establishment figures, minor actors, and just ordinary followers of Trump ... united in their 'heil' adulation of Trump.)

Nowhere along this trail of postings since 2009, did this blogger truly expect America to have a coup set in motion ... by, and with the cooperation of (co-conspiracy, abetting?) rightist-leaning establishment individuals and institutions ... who collectively operated in the dark and who then, with their side-puppets, hid their plans from intelligence and law enforcement agencies. (When just knowing about them and not reporting such conspiracy planning is a violation of national security laws.) 

In retrospect, the co-conspirators in the nature of amateurs brayed their hubris and cultish intentions for all to hear and see... by whoever chose to hear and see. Trump's supporters heard the call clearly and a bunch showed up in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021. 

Apparently, all of that background came as a surprise to the Trump opposition.  And this could be a critical test for American democracy, i.e, even among Trump non-supporters, were there those who knew what was planned but kept quiet?  Will there have to be a national reconciliation of political parties and defining our national morals, perspectives ...and especially our future goals as a nation for the COMMON GOOD.  All of these qualities seem to have been trounced during the grab-bag tenor of the Trump years.

[The author - world citizen, educator, technologist, candidate for elected office...santiago-compostela pilgrim.]

The GOP Today - Resigned, Near-Dead, But Still Tea Bagging...So, It Isn't all Bad, Right?

In the past month or so, the GOP world seems to this blogger to have settled down, and actually a good bit settled. But "settled" has a special meaning when describing the GOP: the GOP circus has not only lost some of its appearance of clowns on tricycles, but the GOP has largely disappeared from view. The GOP is simply moribund, gone, kaput, worn out...and all those descriptors of a group gone underground from embarassment and with nothing to say that is relevant, helpful or connecting with the public. The GOP congressional faction has seemingly resigned from participating in national government; but even that gesture has been futile with nearly universal mutiny of the ranks from the GOP line urging rejection of Stimulus help. A core of GOP governors, interestingly the poorest states in the union, even tried to resign from the Stimulus Program but their state legislators voted against such idiocy given the especially dire economic condition of the sedition-inclined GOP states. This association of the GOP stronghold with the poorest states is nothing to be proud of, but we can see the GOP trying even to make hay of that mal-linkage at the expense of poor people.

There is truly a perception that the GOP is working against itself despite all its effort to get things together. Charles Homan ("Culture Shock" in the conservative movement, Washington Monthly)aptly describes the spinning, out of control misfirings of the GOP as a mishapen version of former conservative elegance ala William Buckley:

"Operating forever in the shadow of National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., they had spent half a century honing their rhetorical chops on the romantic notion that an argument, framed eloquently and forcefully enough, could change the course of history. Worse, these arguments tended to be advanced in right-wing publications that made little effort to attract a general audience, devolving into an exercise of limited interest to anyone not already locked inside the echo chamber."

I prefer less coddling words: the GOP is lost in a kind of political "mannerism" where they remember the postures but have lost any idea of the meanings and contexts of their awkaward and jerky mimicry of conservativeness. The result is the derangment of Limbaugh, the Innanity of Hannity, the Dreck of Beck, and Michelle Bachmann's stupid utterances accompanied with her really strange, vapid and pat-on-back-expecting-look-at-me-daddy false smiles. The GOP sputterings are not down-to-earth, nurturing oatmeal but dry sawdust and dull nails.

Right now,the only GOP action is a half-hearted call to insurrection, the New Tea Party movement. But as usual with the GOP these days, their knack for stepping ankle deep in nasty stuff and then gladly, gleefully, as if they are doing something terribly witty, shoving said covered foot deep into mouth, saw them lose all seriousness with the GOP talking head labeling of their own movement as "TEA BAG" event!!! OH MY!!! A reaching of new and atmospheric heights of silliness and cultural disconnect. OH MY, twice said!

(On second thought, for a sec, at least the GOP can claim they didn't know what TEA BAGGING means; but really... what occured was a kind of Freudian brain-fart, a confession of having perused rather risque material without a clue to what was going on. One can only imagine what other misinterpretations the GOP is guilty of. Maybe we were treated to an insight on the major problem with the GOP - they see really kinky stuff as normal, and interpret good stuff as the devil's work. This is terribly embarassing for them. It all adds up to a dischordant, disconnect with reality. A stumbling along with incoherent mutterings and occasional references to glassy eye of newt, bad unicorn horn and unpleasant dragon's breath. OH MY, again! And a "help them, Lord." (And help us get out from their insanity, too, while YOU are at it, please, and thank YOU.)

However, this Ship of Fools (GOP) must sail on; maybe they will eventually realize they are dead in the water because they forgot to raise anchor. Until then the GOP rows furiously only pausing their Sysiphian efforts to pat themselves on the back as the GOP vessel sits smiling at rest, dead in the water.