American Racism: Justice Thomas, LGBTQA and Just Stuff

This post is motivated by Mark Kaplan's November 27, 2017, article in 'Alternet.org' (Clarence Thomas Must Resign) where he correlates Anita Hill's 1991 allegations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas, during his Senate Confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, with the current sexual harassment allegations facing Roy Moore of Alabama who is seeking election as a US Senator from Alabama.


In 1991, the US Senate did confirm Clarence Thomas to the United States Supreme Court where he remains to this day, but as Mark Kaplan points out, in hindsight, there was much to regret and puzzle over in the Senate's confirmation - by what occurred then during the hearings and later from Justice Thomas's often puzzling and enigmatic conduct (seen in his rare writings and verbal bench expresions (a marked lack thereof). One item that remains an egregious feature from the 1991 hearings was that in response to the Senators' fierce challenges to Anita Hill's allegations, she agreed to, and passed, a lie detector test ...that Clarence Thomas refused to take.

Overall, the 1991 Hill-Thomas events appear to define a threshold in American history that presaged a growing pattern of revelations, and counter attacks, of past and current sexual harassment in American institutions, both public and private.

But to Justice Thomas. Since his 1991 confirmation, Justice Thomas has acquired a consistent aura of mystery concerning just whose perspective and cause he represents. although one can glimpse through the fog and mist he throws up around his mumblings (literally) he does not 'voice' a progressive point of view,...nor does he always express a reactionary opinion. At best, Justice Thomas has appeared to have struggled to hedge his bets against all critiques and analyses. He seems to have a fear of expressing himself in any way that might identify him as a proponent of anything, and certainly hide his minority group membership. This 'running from himself' seems to originate from unresolved confusion and hurt, from from early age, from racial prejudice. Thomas's unresolved hurts seemingly restrict and throw a fog over his rare, written opinions and utterings from the bench. (In 2016, Justice Thomas made the news by breaking his 10 year silence from the SCOtUs bench.) Thomas's rare and largely unintelligible 'expressions' on the Supreme court stand out (i.e., are uniquely different from) from his colleagues's and when they do appear, seem awkwardly worded and simply different, from his colleagues's - an exception being Justice Scalia (RIP), his legal compatriot, whose anti-LBGTQA and anti-abortion, anti-progressiceness, ...seems to have lived in the same existential void as Thomas.

IMHO, the reason why Thomas' rare writings and 'sayings (rarely recorded because they are like a hurt child's spurts of confused anger. Thomas presents as a physical-appearing adult who disguises those hurts in empty-sounding phrases stemming from empty-meaning thoughts that even he seems to recognize as not worth speaking, as to speak these mind-farts would jeopardize his standing with the public and his SCOTUS peers...as they do when rarely uttered.

Justice Thomas's rare and unintelligible 'expressions' seem to say he has not confronted the hurt he has from past (and presently felt) discriminatory prejudices from others, and come to accept that those prejudices are based on superficial physical qualities he can not correct...no matter how hard he might try and pray to remove. These targeted natural (God-deemed) qualities are for Thomas focused on skin color. Thomas does not appear to have an adult minority person's reaiization that his and others' qualities such as race, color or LGBTQ are 'God-given' ('natural') and that he/she is morally right (and has the Constitutional right) to challenge those prejudices when they restrict his and others' freedoms to live the same as every majority (white, hetero) American citizen, i.e., to enjoy full color-gender-other blind Constitutional rights and protections, including marriage.

Consequently, imho, Thomas's rare and largely unintelligible SCOTUS opinions often appear to be ramblings to himself and his still-tortured soul. It's as if he wants to say he recognizes racial and gender prejudice and discrimination but fears to seem to acknowledge he is a member of the targeted group. Consequently, his opinions in cases of racial/gender nature are absent or simply disregarded as pro-forma (for him) and of little worth.

Thomas has yet to develop an adult's comprehension of 'what's going on' which would allow him to formulate an 'au courant', 'woke' sense of self, his boundaries, and his probable feeling of hurt from imjustly breached personal boundaries. This evolved but unreached selfhood would have given Justice Thomas a self-respecting defiance of those who breach those Constitutionally assured boundaries and justly define the prejudiced and their causes as unjust!. Instead, Thomas appears to struggle, with inarticulate non-success, to render all points of view, even of the prejudiced, in equal light. Thomas seems to think this middle-road stance is safe but it actually makes him appear empty and useless.

Moreover, from his 'waffling', Thomas seems to want to give racial/gender prejudice an equally valid moral weight as the misguided prejudices of the alt-right oppressor of LGBTQA and racial minorities...which also seems to be a hallmark of the present Trumpian (POTUS) philosophy.

(Pericles21 is certain that Justice Thomas, as an adult African-American male, continues to experience hurtful prejudice.) The point though is when might Justice Thomas wake up?

Artificial Intelligence: the Future of Our Religion-Capitalism Paradigm, New Gods...and the Eminent ? of Humanity

A recent article streamed from the DailyGalaxy web site, "An AI God Will Emerge, Replacing Our Concept of the Divine", 102417) painted a future where Artificial Intelligence (in device or mega-cloud format) may escape from human control after passing some cybernetic threshold of uber-smartness compared to humans. This threshold is, as of yet, undeterminable but felt by a significant number of vocal scientists to be both inevitable and fast creeping up on us.

Pericles21 posits that it will be impossible to sustain human control over future Artificial Intelligence because of our mercantile-dominated Western culture that is dominated by the Capitalist Equation where nearly every item or service is price-tagged and Western (nay, Global) economies are driven to maximize profit. A break in this post is inserted to review this phenomenon:

CAPITALISM EQUATION: Maximum Profit = Revenue - MINIMUM COSTS (where the desired cost goal is ZERO)

ZERO Costs is the 21st century mantra that governs most if not all human activity in this era of global capitalism.

ZERO COSTS is the cause of global wealth inequality and is killing working humanity by its consequences: elimination of raw material costs by resource robbery in non-developed nations, outsourcing of manufacturing to lowest wage areas, the elimination or at least emasculation of unions, and increasing productivity through automation which serves to reduce labor cost(human participation in manufacturing) to a goal of ZERO!

Capitalism's goal of ZERO LABOR COST will essentially be achieved as automation becomes widespread and eventually human labor becomes fully redundant with Artificial Intelligence taking over from all labor activities.

The ascendency of this simple Capitalism Equation (destruction of Labor's negotiating powers by eleiminating unions and automation) has been a steady trend since industrialization was introduce in the 19th century, with certain halts such as the period after the Great Depression, principally the Roosevelt programs that promoted a balance of power between labor and capital. But there was also a second attempt to restore that power balance through an appeal to reason and observation that unfettered capital development was ruining our water and air quality that quite naturally deteriorated the health of workers and the general population...thus negatively affecting worker productivity. A strong voice among economists bringing attention to this need for Capitalism to support policies that acknowledged Capitalism's shared accountability in preserving clean water and air through appropriate manufacturing practices and government guidelines (regulations) was what Pericles21 calls the 'Samuelson School' of the 1980s (Samuelson, MIT). Unfortunately, after a brief popularity the Capitalism world re-established its former myopia regarding the public weal and went full out to complete the destruction of American unions and further its CAPITALISM EQUATION goal of ZERO COSTS.

This brings this discussion back to Artificial Intelligence...which will, unless managed in some way, complete the process of making human labor and humans in general, redundant!

The process of making the working human labor, and humans themselves, redundant will be unstoppable as long as Western culture is, unquestioned, shaped and ruled by the profit-driven, unbreakable partnership between Western religion's gods and modern, unfettered global capitalism, aka Neo-liberalism - all of these will allow unthinking acceleration of technologies that serve purely to promote the Capitalist Equation (ZERO LABOR COST). If not a declared partnership, the relationship between economic-corporate-society and religion has become mutually supportive, mutually protecting and mutually preserving. The first two traits of the 'Partnership' might be seen as positive or at least non-destructive, but the third trait is negative because it traps humanity into a whirlpool of its own making, greed of profit and what profit will 'buy'.

Yes, it appears human 'civilization' has beecome simply defined as 'Buy' (how much available to buy, what to buy and what next can (must?) be bought to satisfy basic urges that are not 'needs'. Humanity's real 'needs (those of the world's needy, i.e., food, clean water, clothing, housing, health care, education ...are now ignored because the needy have no money to Buy right now...and the corporate frame is short term, quarterly at best. The corporatist frame can't wait a decade for an educated and more productive, and more consuming, citizenry to appear after a social makeover!.

Given this dynamic and the increased profitability of Ai replacing inefficient human labor, the uber-Ai threshold is inevitable, approaching rapidly, and can't be stopped without some major social-economic adjustment...which is not likely.

Pericles21, secondly posits that the uber-Ai threshold for exceeding human 'smartness' is between 5-10 years (probably already here in some defense agency projects). 'We' can do nothing more than hold onto our hats and ride it wherever 'it', not 'we', goes.

The preparative signs of a coming demotion of human importance is already here, most significantly being the gross, global mal-distribution of wealth and income..where the net assets of several billion 'poor' are exceeded by the assets of only a few hundred or less uber-rich.

Humanity is stuck neck deep in our own muck and mire generated by greed, lust, selfishness and the other human frailties we know about and fret about but they are supported or preserved by that sacred partnership between what we believe in - the joining of religion and capitalism.

What is it about us humans and technical progress that seems to entrap us in our own technical cleverness where we injure our health with untested pharmaceuticals, injure our environment (and again, our health) by grossly polluting factories and our failure to conceive of consequences of letting industrial waste be dumped willy-nilly into our water and air as if it no longer is our concern if we can't see it?

Whatever 'It" is about human shortsightedness, we have been unable to learn to slow down and think about what demons technical progress might unchain. And so it seems we are faced with unseen consequences that might accompany uncontrolled development of Artificial Intelligence.

Except, there is a growing movement to try to see what might come upon humanity from super-intelligent artificial constructs.

Under the current 'religion-capitalism' partnership that seems to dominate the Western world, it will be difficult to stop Ai progress as long as economic profits appear linked with Ai. Current Western religions and associated gods are thereby doomed by human greed, selfishness, etc... the human frailties. This good for progress but bad for 'stability', i.e., the status quo. Bottom line -corporate-speak), unfettered capitalism will have to be 'made over', or go.
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An AI God Will Emerge --"Replacing Our Concept of the Divine"
October 24, 2017

America Needs A Make-Over, A 21st Century Bill of Rights and 10 Year Economic Plan

Preface:
America needs a 21st Century Bill of Rights - an updating of the 1791 Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the American Constitution. The 1791 Bill of rights were intended to protect the rights of the citizens from potentially overpowering government authority. Now, 225 years later, a radically different world faces the American citizen who once again seems to be forgotten and de-prioritized (viz., "Citizens United") and where corporations are close to having the right to vote! America desperately needs to revitalize its commitment to its citizens' (the rights to a quality of life as the unique rights of actual living persons as contrasted to imagined 'rights' of abstract legal constructs). America must update its commitment to the 'Common Weal' (Common Good) - the right of an alive citizen to 'quality of life' (health, education and economic security) in the face of modern technology and global interactions.

Currently, in 2017, America has no plan to change itself regarding its neglect of the Common Weal, and more sadly, America seems to have something against self-examination and planning changefor the future, and seems stuck in place and losing ground. Amazingly, in many areas of the America and among a sizeable voting segment (the new nationalism), this American stasis or even reversing of history is something to be valued and pursued!

To provide insurance for the future, America needs an modernization program for its national air, rail and roads infrastructure. And America needs an industry modernization program to review, prioritize and plan in phases of short, intermediate and long term.

America especially needs a social makeover - a self-analysis and understanding of itself to finally resolve its racial (and gender) tensions even as America has become, increasingly, multi-racial and multicultural.

In all, America needs a self-examination, review and restart like never since 1791. While the 'first Bill of Rights intended to offset and balance the powers of the State, for nearly 150 years since the Industrial Revolution, deep changes have happened in America and the world around us while we have neglected the Common Weal. And, for almost 100 years since the 1940s, we have neglected our industry and the people who work in it. This is the crux of an August 14, 2017, Washington Post article by Seva Gunitsky who analyzes the spread of American Fascism in the 1930s.

Since 1791, times have changed...and radically changed. It takes a fool, or one who is deliberately self-delusionned, not to see this. Times have even changed substantially since 1950 which indicates that life is not waiting for the slow to catch up, whether individuals or nations. It is time to make national policy course corrections with a updated Bill of Rights and a 'Plan' for America's future (hopefully, a long term plan not just a 30-90-360 day profit-loss accounting).

America's 21ST Century Bill of Rights must emphasize self-examination and review, planning and implementation...for the immediate, intermediate and long term. This will be a 15-20 year program. (It could be a series of 10 year phases with major reviews each decade). This idea struck Pericles21 after reading today an excellent article that highlights America's current economic and social paralysis -our national, dysfunctional stasis - that compares our 2017 status with dynamic destructive forces of the 1930s. To 'break through this impasse, America needs a 21st century 'makeover' however difficult that might be...not to accomplish this will see America increasingly sink into the mire of past history as we beecome more and more clownish in our economic distress and our simplistic, bad political choices.

We need to catch ourselves up from long neglect of our quality of life, investment in our human resources (one-payer health coverage and subsidized higher education) and as well looking elsewhere while our antiquated industrial base rots away and dies out from neglect and our lack of planning for future industries and sources of employment. America needs a Bill of Rights for the 21st Century if America is to remain a global leader, have a stable, competent, satisfied (high quality-of-life), and invested citizenry, and be prepared to exist 50 years from now.

At the 'bottom' of this thought lie critical questions about America, and Americans, in the 21st century - how to measure national 'success', how to 'successfully' govern a modern nation and how to plan for its future, continued success?

These questions make up a set of choices:

where does the citizen rank in priority vs other institutions and measures of national ranking such as military might, industrial GNP and GDP, etc; does the 'Common Weal' (Common Good) come second to socio-economic hierarchy, the 'betters' of Old Country feudal ways, are Common Good programs (health, education and economic resources such as jobs) far secondary to military spending, or second to ...something(s) else? And what is a valid measure of a 'sucessfull' nation'?

America's seemingly has adopted a preferred measure of success, the national 'Profitability' metric (GDP, GNP, the various Stock indices, etc). But, profitability as a substitute for moral ethics (regard for the human element in the mix, without which there is no meaningful national purpose) is a sad, destructive substitution because it defines America as having little or no moral direction and implies minimal concern for its citizens relative to the rest of the planet's developed nations. An example of America's drifting about is its 200 year old, continued, unresolved moral paralysis about its racial history and current racial relations.

America's current prioritizing of 'profitability' indicates America has lost the Founders' 1791 regard for the Public Weal, the Common Good, the whole purpose of the original 1791 Bill of Rights. But, the concepts found in the 1791 Bill of Rights currently seem the whole purpose of havng a modern nation.

America must correct from its current dangerous emphasis almost wholly on military ascendancy. This change is especially important as the pace of life and the rate of changes in life especially are accelerating beyond our capacity to keep up, as a nation and especially its citizens.

And this acceleration of life seems (No! Does come!)from Washington, DC in the person of America's current, new POTUS (President) whose ever changing, randomly focused, capricious, vengeful, shifting and shifty personality is affecting Americans (even those who voted for him) and the rest of Earth's living creatures (as America, under new POTUS directives, has chosen to withdraw form human quality-of-life resource protective international accords, animal habitat preservation policies, water and air regulations, etc).

Our remaining industries are increasingly antiquated, or dreamed about as miraculously being born again, even though the rest of the world is replacing them with totally newer technologies, products, and services.

More time, it seems is spent crying for reincarnating our industry relics (eg, coal mining) and 'gold-strike' beating of chests over fracking and shale oil than developing fusion, wind and solar power. (Fusion power is so much a worthwhile goal yet one rarely hears about its development and/or funding, except in Europe, China, Russia, etc...in other words, the rest of the planet.

Why is America caught in this stasis condition - where there is no plan for the future of our industry (employmemt sources), education, a healthy citizenry to function in the new 'industries'? Imho, America is prevented from modernizing because America has been seduced, misled and deliberately derailed from modernizing by allowing (voting for) our national leadership to substitute a facade (false or at best, incomplete)way of judging value and success of programs, businesses and people by the measure of its profitability.

The measure of 'Profitability' over real ethics is a sad and destructive substitution because it says America has little or no integrity, moral direction and concern for its citizens and has lost the Founders' regard for the Public Weal, the Common Good - the whole purpose of the original 1791 Bill of Rights.

, with a dangerously abbreviated (but easy as heck to handle mentally) business 'ethic' of 'what's good for business is all we need to knowi.e. our capitalist 'milk cow' sentiments (don't invest in something s long as it's surviving and generating profits, and move to the next market when it dies).

America's new 'ethic' since Reagan or since Nixon, has been 'What's right for business, is what's right'!

Ideological resistance (current Republican Party) to the notions of the PUBLIC WEAL (from the earliest colonial times) and the general consequence of decades of, again by conservative ideology, economic impoverishment and dumbing down of the working American, Doubt the latter claim - then examine the purpose and result of America's 3 to 5 decade old policy of selectively thieving the ready-made, technical human resources of foreign countries rather than investing in improved math and science teaching, and free or subsidized education for American-born kids.

As for education, health and the general Common Weal of America's human resources, America has for 50 years cannibalized-by-neglect its own children.

And 'Thank you' that, Republican conservative ideologies mixed with bitterness from a lost Civil War!! There, it's said...one day America will heal itself from the left overs from the 1860s Civli War that supposedly, but not, ended going on 200 years ago!!!

Some day, perhaps not soon, and not soon enough, America will take the time and make the effort to ponder the effects of the Civil War, heal the wounds, salve the bitterness and face the future as a diverse, true equality for gender and race, multicultural, modern and united America - mutually tolerant and restored in dynamism...ready to look outward.

Meanwhile, 'Life' is now immensely more complex and becoming more complex at an accelerating rate of change..

For example, America's industry, what is left, is piecemeal a dwindling, unplanned, or even un-envisonned, set of 19th century fragments and dinosaur bones whose final deaths are being postponed by 'upgrades' (actually'delay' strategies destined to die away ...soon ).

America not only needs a 'Plan' for new industry (employment 'platforms' of whatever shape they might be sustaining a satisfying quality of life for everyone - either by a basic income for everyone, or minimally a basic Common Weal threshold..of health care and education. With those two 'basics' a small family can work at serving burgers yet have self respect and a future for its children.

Change is the new mantra and essence of life. Now, it seems we can only take a quick breath before the next 24 hours brings even more changes. Now we can best describe our lives in terms of change but no longer over a decade but in 24 hour cycles. We now must adapt ourselves to a new concept of 'second order' living where change is replaced by the need to cope with accelerated change, a rate-of-change. If one has been calculus-trained, this concept is familiar...when designing machines, jet planes, international space stations, etc. Never before have 'we' had to test our mental capacity to function like a machine under stress from a 'hard' accelerating pace of life. By 'hard acceleration, one means the substantive changes that are coming over not the next decade or even year, but tomorrow, literally.

And this acceleration of life seems (No! Does come!)from Washington, DC in the person of America's current, new POTUS (President) whose ever changing, randomly focused, capricious, vengeful, shifting and shifty personality is affecting Americans (even those who voted for him) and the rest of Earth's living creatures (as America, under new POTUS directives, has chosen to withdraw form human quality-of-life resource protective international accords, animal habitat preservation policies, water and air regulations, etc).

There is now a clear call for a new, 21ST CENTURY BiILL of RIGHTS and National Plan. Such a framework will serve to remove desperation and social instability and economic stagnation by installing three basic pillars of a healthy society...sound public education, a national long term economic plan for new industries (not just focused on benefitting the stock-owning class) and a one payer, universal health coverage. These programs, after 2 generations, will have created a physically sound workforce with minimal sick-out 'downtime', an educated citizenry prepared to adapt to, and invent, new global technologies, and make enlightened political choices, and overall a physically healthy, employed, positive society at peace with its diverse history and with a confident vision of its future as a modern nation.

A Solution for the Times: 'Daddy Let Your Mind Roll On' (Or, Why Worry, Suck Down That Kool-Ade) - Why Don'tcha?

Are 'we', America and the rest of Earth's inhabitants (all of 'us' - hominids and lesser 'folks')beset with the projected dis-ease of a 'canted' personality, that of our dear POTUS? Think carefully about that before you answer 'Nyet'! (Catch the insinuation?!?!)

Since the November 2016 POTUS election, it's been tough to gather oneself and 'find' time to ponder and collect one's thoughts about what happened in the election, and what is happening and what might still happen. Basically, it's all been 'batshit' crazy since November 2016.

For several months (geez, 6 months actually) Pericles21 has had an unfinished overview post about what happened last November 2016, but it seems - No! It does not 'seem', it 'is the case' - that America, and the world with us (because of us), has fallen into a whirlpool..a whirlpool in the middle of a cesspool..of confusing, too quickly changing but uniformly chaotic..'existence' if one can call it existence. It's hard to adapt to constant chaos isn't it?

How can one use the term 'uniform' with 'chaotic'? Well, for a start, just sit and try to describe what is now going on in Washington, DC, and globally. 'See' - thoughts go round and round...where it all stops is not possible to see. The current world and national situation can't be described using standard expositional structures and analysis and structures. There is so little sense to it all. And it changes so quickly. Too quickly. Chaos is a good term to use.

Some do adapt, though not exactly in a 'healthy' mature manner (depending one one's perspective and personal tools). A Zen perspective might help. But not everyone has the Dalai Llama's reincarnate centuries of Zen training.

'Taking the bullet' and simply ducking and avoiding the stage lights helps, too. Doesn't it?

But the 'normal' person (who gives a shit) is left with just dizziness - but that at least means plenty of company ( isn't that comforting?), over 60% of our American population experiences 'diarrhea-nervosa' trying to get its heads around our dear leader and his antics.

That's comforting, too. Isn't it?.

The rest of the world largely copes by laughing it's collective head off at our arms-a-flailing running around like headless chickens.

And that's real comfort...isn't it?

And there you have it,

there is comfort for everyone... we all can be happy, theoretically, if one is willing to walk around giggling like a mad person, or half asleep or mentally dwelling off-planet.

If these traits (artifices for us) sound familiar it's because they are all found in the person of Dear POTUS. In other 'words' we Americans and the rest of Mother Earths two-legged hominids have been gobbsmocked, bamboozled and smoky-mirrored by an ace carny clown into a state of high dis-ease.

But what does one do, many times, in that state ...of dis-ease? Why kick back, pop a top (or corn), fill a bowl (popped corn, cherries, or might be appropriate in your State, or state?), turn on TV and 'GET OUT' (Paglia). It works. For a while.

America re-discovers it's past remedy for this dis-ease(1970s at least, during the time of the Nixon 'illness').

'Sit right down, Daddy, let your mind roll on'

But, there is, at least, an analysis tool/phraseology that many Americans are familiar with who have experience with military. A unifying phrase, ultimate in simplicity, maximal in American linguistic abstraction that describes our current national state of existence pretty well and has been used a a safe drug by many military recruits whose minds have been have been dizzied by the whirlpool of immersion in a military world of commands and counter-commands and counters-to-counter commands:

'SNAFU..SITUATION NORMAL, ALL FUCKED UP'.

SNAFU pretty well describes the world we live in...a world in a chaotic 'non-sense' state since America's Nov 2017, POTUS election, and largely accelerated in non-sense by the principal (POTUS) of that election.

Are 'we', America and the rest of Earth's inhabitants (all of 'us' - hominids and lesser 'folks')beset with the projected dis-ease of a 'canted' personality, that of our dear POTUS? Think carefully about that before you answer 'Nyet'! (Catch the insinuation?!?!)

There, it's said - America's POTUS is the principal agent of a current, all-enveloping national and global Chaos - our global, existential WhirlPool. Will it end, this mutant sport presently occupying the Office of America's President? Of course it will end, sometime. Meanwhile, cope however one can, or must. Just don't forget.

America Stumbles in English to Describe Trump Jr's Two-Stepping Double-Cross of America - 'We're Just Not Subtle Enough, Ma' (Where is HL Mencken?)

[this post is an edited version of a July 12, 2017 post]

'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")

'Yes. There was Collusion, There is Collusion and There will be Collusion' - RICO DeDiTos

Nothing to add.

America at the Crossroads: Empire or Republic? All the Pieces Are On the Board!

Alternatively, the title of this post might have been, 'America's New Caligula' - Donald Trump!

What? Questionnable taste? Then, how do You describe America's current political bad dream? Pericles21 sees too close a parallel between America after November 8, 2016 and Emperial Rome under the Emperor Caligula, maybe its grossest, most decadent leader ever. And now we have Trump.

'Caligula' (Little Boots, 'Bootsie' in Latin) based on the root 'Caliga' the oversized Legionaire boots that Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (Caligula) marched around in as a child in his father's Roman military outpost in Germany.

And America has 'DediTo' (DT, Little Fingers, 'Fingers' in Latin) based on a physically noticeable featuture of America's latest president.

(more coming.)