'Come forth, you incarnate Menckens! America calling! Mencken is also referenced, thoroughly, in a recent article, 'Revisiting H.L. Mencken in The Age of Trump' (FRANK FEAR, LA Progressive)
The American, so-called progressive, media keeps going with the Trump head-fakes - or is too cowardly to steady-gazed call a charlatan a charlatan. 'How come, Ma? They can read and write words like nobody's business(scratching of head.)' Ma: "Well, sonny, it's all about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches - or, if you can't deal with that, 'you pay your money then you have to choose', is that clear enough for you?" Sonny: "Sure Ma! Can I go out to play, now?" Ma: "Don't forget to tie your shoe laces and chew some gum." Sonny: "You're great, Ma."
Americans use language like...chimps read encyclopedias...seemingly absorbed utlil one notices the encyclopedia book is upside down.
And on to this post.
Almost daily,in the last six-months since the January inauguration, we've witnessed better entertainment than television farce - belly-splitting comedy and ballyhoo regarding Father Trump and most recently, son 'Junior' Trump and the 'Russian thing'.
More specifically, we are now grappling with Trump Jr's attempts to tell us about his interfaces before the 2016 election with Russian interests while in the same breath, lying-by-omission about those encounters. Seems Trump Jr, and many many other key Trump-president staffers and advisers who have critically sensitive security clearances (insisted on by DT) didn't exactly tell about all their meetings with Russian agents, businessmen-agents, crooks and grifters... all of whom had bad intentions in mind for America. Or, who were currently involved with active bad things against America.
All this has come down to a specific meeting between Trump Jr (with two of daddy's key staffers) and a Russian lawyer-alleged-agent. But wait a minute! Seems that meeting has grown in number with each retelling. We won't know where it ends but how many others attended that meeting? Well, that room surely was crowded with all those Russians, American political hacks (Trump supporters) and electronic surveillance and blocking devices!
According to Trump Jr, the meeting was all about procuring offered "dirt" (damaging info) on Hillary Clinton. But then again, if one shifted one's gaze into the mirror a bit, there appears in the background a tear jerking scene - the meeting was 'really' about pleading with Russia, on behalf of all those sad American childless couples, to lift Russia's bad ban on letting childless Americans adopt Russian babies. 'Bayby-Gate'
'But then', Russia's baby-ban was Russia's answer to America's economic sanctions on Russia (Putin and his Russian-global mafia) for it's attempt to launder dirty money from illicit global operations (read 'crime') consisting mostly of sex-slave trafficking, surplus nuclear-and-standard weaponry, drugs, etc.
The main talking point surely wasn't about babies!
But Trump Jr's tale has shown us tricky turns, back flips, reverse angle corner shots ( excuses and dodges) and other contortions all woven together in Trump Jr's attempts to tell his side of things and yet spin a golden veil from coarse home-spun.
Almost as bad as Trump Jr's omissions and dodging is the almost-as-bad efforts of the American press and media to parse WTF is happening in all this tragi-comedy, political magic act from the Trump opus.
Is it that the Trump male line is endowed with a 'slick gene' so slack that any one of them can come off the bench and bamboozle the media with split-fingered, meth-jumpy, spit-gooberish curve ball pitches? It looks like it, but Pericles21 posits a reason for this might just be that the Trumps are playing Brooklyn street ball (known for its traditions of roughhouse mayhem) while the media is playing cricket in the highlands (tea break, anyone?
In the July 12, 2017, DailyKos web page (july 12, 2017) "On language: The meeting was about sanctions, not "adoption", "Dcg2" commented on the failure of even veteran American media writers to use the English language sufficiently to convey how Trump Jr's recurring excuses and resultant, unending descent into ludicrousness and self-immolation amaze the 'veteran' American media.
However, fret not. Pericles21 has a thought that should help put our media's plight into perspective.
Pericles21 (me):
Americans are not subtle in how we use our language...even though increasingly our culture, especially the political part, has become full of situations that call for subtlety in cynicism and humor, or (deliciously) both. 'Ordinary' America-speak just can’t carry the weight. I have had Russian-American friends who’ve described the cathartic joy that Russian people under current and previous Russian dictators have enjoyed using the power of subtlety and irony in their language. Maybe it’s that we Americans like to get right to the bone of a situation and, instead of language-basd subtlety, employ such mind-releasing tricks as shooting, stabbing, punching, lynching, burning to the ground, running over with cars, tossing out of windows, etc. (and with as much dramatic noise as possible). America needs, desperately, as many Neo-Menckens as possible. They’re around...let them come forth!
And Dcg2 sums it all up in a tidy parse:
Ultimately, we don’t control government. We don't control the media. But we do control the language we use — and we don't have to adopt their language or their spin, nor should we legitimize the mainstream media adopting their language or talking points
Daily Kos web ("On language: The meeting was about sanctions, not "adoption")
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