Don’t read this, maybe. I have to write it though.

I had a friend who served as an army ranger, special forces, he said that he was stationed in many places “we weren’t supposed to be“ and he told me a story about Afghanistan.

He said that before 911, one of the most charismatic leaders In the northern part of of Afghanistan was rising in popularity. I guess he would be considered a warlord- but kind of a combination of war lord and Bruce Springsteen, for the militias in the north. Yes. Popular national leader, potentially. (It was Ahmad Shah Massoud, of the Northern Alliance.)

He may have been the most significant challenger to the Taliban- and the Taliban too was on the rise.

We’re talking autumn of 2000.

My friend explained that, just weeks before 9/11, this charismatic leader was visited by journalists, at a time in which he was poised to gain some control of the country and prevent the Taliban insurgency from taking over.

He was beloved, revered, admired- politically significant within the country.

The journalists who visited this leader were Al-Qaeda. This militia leader was assassinated. Murdered.

My brilliant, thick-skinned special forces veteran was practically in tears when he told me the story. A veteran frustrated with the ironies of fate. He knew the man, Massoud. He knew that it was a hidden turning point in history.

911 happened. A power-vacuum left ignorant young Taliban kids to negotiate the removal of Bin Laden with the United States of America. I’m not saying they’re innocent- but naive, clueless, as well as violent fanatics. And Bin Laden was a Saudi. An “unwelcome guest”.

He could not be removed without violent insurgencies igniting throughout the region.

And Bush/ Cheney were going to bomb the shit out of Afghanistan.

My army ranger friend was already hoping to return, to rebuild infrastructure, electricity, roads society. A failed state breeds terror.

But the hope was crushed by the assassination of what could have been a national leader with international support.

He explained that history is not always what occurs – it’s what opportunities are taken off the table even before what we think of as history begins.

A charismatic leader with influence in the country could have prevailed against the Taliban but, once assassinated, that opportunity was destroyed forever.

I’m just telling you what a veteran told me, although it is true that a militia leader was assassinated before 911 and it was known in the region how significant it was that he was killed.

I just can’t Google all this right now. It goes on the pile of all the comment threads that really mean so little.

Then the war came. We drop the mother of all bombs, we carpet-bombed the villages, the targets, donkeys and weddings, we chased in jets above unknown terrain looking for Osama bin Laden in a cave, not knowing our chance of prevailing was zero.

Our chance of success was nill.

If you don’t believe me, consider this : in the beginning of the invasion of Iraq by George W Bush, an international effort was being put in place by Sergio DeMello, and with that came hopes of truly international collaboration in the ensuing war against Sadaam Hussein Dictator of Iraq.

In the early days of the invasion the United Nations installation was just being put together in Iraq.

The initial invasion was complete, and the blueprint for the next stage of the conflict was just being begun.

And in charge of the UN effort, De Mello, brought diplomatic flair, objectivity, experience, and the possibility of truly building a coalition that might spare Iraq an endless war.

And the international effort was seen as crucial and would certainly be a necessity when combat ceased and rebuilding ensued.

The site was bombed- by what became ISIS, DeMello was killed and the international effort was destroyed forever.

The day of that bombing, president George W. Bush was on the golf course. It was a sunny day and he was informed on the cell phone- blackberry, back then -that the international effort was over- the bombing of the UN site in Iraq had occurred-

and, as I thought at the time, the true import of that phone call was that the US incursion was a lost cause; the international effort was over, and that the mission of George W Bush was doomed forever to failure – in the first months of the invasion.

It was over before it began. 100,00 casualties. Now perhaps a million. Who knows? They refused to count.

What was needed was removed from the table even before history began- and the reasons, the causes for that, are so complex, so tragic, so heartbreaking- we may never know all that has been lost, beyond the millions of deaths in the wake of this initial catastrophic pursuit of empire.

You don’t have to believe the story- you don’t have to Google anything I say- but I can tell you that this September 11 is going to be a deeply troubling reminiscence of more than what happened on that day – but how much lead up to that day – history we haven’t even begun to process.

Not just three thousand deaths.

Not just a plane turned around at Cleveland, my home town, loaded with passengers returning to San Francisco, my home town – crashed by heroes in a field to prevent the intended destruction of the White House.

Not just those. But millions. Millions of deaths.

I have no insight into this beyond books, conversations, and, like many Americans, I make up my own reality- and yet there’s a deep sorrow involved this time for Americans. We have a lot to think about, and there are no easy answers now -the easy answers were never there.

What was desperately needed – even for that fucked up mission in Iraq, which never should have occurred, was removed before the history we know even began.

Friends, can I say one more thing? It is true we have a Taliban in this country.

We have our warlords, we have militias. We have desperate uneducated people, angry, rejected, enraged.

We have cynical, well-educated people too, using them as pawns -As Osama bin Laden would do, as George W. Bush would do, as Donald Rumsfeld would do.

In Abu Graib, a war prison during Iraq, during the term of Donald Rumsfeld, it was the low-ranking servicemen and women who were accused of acts of torture- even while the secretary of defense played word games, denying the orders from the White House, denying culpability.

Bush /Cheney / Obama /Trump threw our servicemen and servicewomen under the bus.

Our kids were sent on a hopeless mission to remake the map, just as always, to get it down on paper, no matter what the cost.

And, by and large, most Americans said ok. They must know what they’re doing.

Wrong.

“It’ll only take six months, and then we run for President the next year, on a great quick victory over terror” -That’s what they said, anyway.

That’s what they always say.

A failed state is the cause of terrorism, they tried to tell us.

We need to make certain OUR state doesn’t fail.

Tragedy is not knowing the answer to that.

Samuel Alito made news through insensitive remarks but hey. There’s something here to think about.

I listened to Samuel Alito’s speech in Rome, on religious freedom.

It’s forty minutes, but here are the key takeaways:

1. The sun revolves around earth. This is deeply rooted in both History and Tradition.
   You have a constitutional right to believe it.
2. Speaking of the sun. It’s fucking hot in Rome this summer.

-Alito remarks that, while it is usually hot in Rome in summer, this year is much more so. (It’s almost 100 degrees F at 6 am!)

Alito did not mention the obvious, that a recent Supreme Court decision struck down efforts to halt global warming. I’m certain the audience noticed this bland dismissal of climate change. Or maybe not.

3. American football is still the most important subject in the western world.

Football is a bridge to understanding. (Really?)

-Alito drew parallels between religious belief and American football fans. (“Cheese-heads” and headscarves: the same?)

-Sunday football vs Sunday mass, quite leaving out the range of thinking and creativity of the rest of the population immune to these distractions. (See #1. Sun revolves around Earth.)

4. Religious freedom is “embattled” and must be fought for. (It’s not, of course. Religious practice has just declined, despite the tremendous perks granted in the First Amendment.)

Yes, despite the fact that religious practice is protected, and that is clear in the Constitution, Alito blames “secular society” for what he sees as a limitation on religious freedom- that other people have different beliefs, too, he finds objectionable. (See #1, sun revolving around earth, again.)

-That belief systems must co-exist is not a battle, however. Coexistence is the opposite of a battle, in reality.

---

(If true, that religion is “embattled”, the judge has definitely chosen sides. He has a prejudicial view, and takes up the cudgel for a particular religion, despite law and precedent. Impartiality, what good is it?)

Alito acknowledges his own view that the religious question is for him adversarial. It’s a struggle for power. Nothing but.

Alito, in addressing religious freedom, ignored the fact that the US Capitol was attacked by those who consider themselves Christian Soldiers.

-Leaders, like Mike Flynn, spoke “evangelical” to rallies, in order to heat up the movement to the J6 assault on American Democracy. Many in the crowd were led in prayer for the miracle that would overturn the election.

The large Dec 12, 2020 MAGA rally in Washington, just one week before plans were put in place for the J6 assault, was led in part by evangelical activists and Alex Jones, one of the Space Laser Community.

5. Alito shifts to an argument that goes without saying, that, of course, religious practice promoted charity and social justice. Abolition and civil rights.

-And yet, right now, states are figuring out how to enforce the Dobbs decision against women and girls and men and doctors and neighbors.

(Alito did not note that the power of the State to determine human rights based on religion was a foundation for totalitarianism in Nazi Germany. He did footnote the Holocaust, however, as something bad that happened.)

Alito did not explain the inherent bigotry of such a world view, how utterly parochial it is, nor that Republicans contemplate using military, national guard, martial law, to enforce it. No mention was made by Alito of the attempted Muslim Ban in USA.)

So who is embattled by whom, one wonders?

And then the Alitos had a really nice dinner while Rome burned in the summer heat.

---

There is one point implicit in Alito’s remarks on religious freedom. He’s not too keen on freedom of thought as an inalienable right. Perhaps he sees secular society as a lot of cheese-heads. Misguided fans of culture.

He sees believers wandering in a fallen secular world, unable to express the full extent of their personal beliefs. Welcome to Planet Earth.

Alito did credit those- James Madison among them- who surveyed human rights and included results from a wide range of approaches to government from ancient history to modern life, an effort to determine what rights of all are most important to include in declarations of human rights.

So we see that, historically, it was secular scholars who made provisions for religious freedom- not the other way around.

---

I’m certain Alito’s remarks were intended to be light in tone and not challenging to his audience.

But he signaled his dislike of society and his deep bias and the limited comprehension expressed of the real world- the world which many of us actually do cherish. Including the right to be free, truly free.

When I see Alito I’m not seeing freedom. I’m seeing social injustice and tanks in the street.

Vote Blue.

***

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Chief Justice John Roberts.

He took a rare opportunity the other day to comment on the opprobrium directed at the Court after the overturning of human rights, saying disagreements about an opinion do not reflect on the legitimacy of the Court.

That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard from a conservative- ever.

The Dredd Scott Court in 1857 was “legitimate.” That didn’t grant it integrity, when it upheld slavery.

It’s the decision, stupid.

To indignantly defend an opinion that was not set in precedent, that was written out of acrimony, and that includes hate speech, and was based in the thinking of an era of witch burning; that was issued immediately upon seating a corrupt court, with two stolen seats, nominations by presidents that did not reflect the popular will; that includes the spouse of an insurrectionist that lobbied for the overthrow of government, and then who ruled on her case.

John Roberts. He just ended the last vestiges of legitimacy with one word.

Americans are not in the mood, John Roberts, to be lectured on respect for a court that has not earned it or delivered justice and fairness and constitutional protections that are the right of every citizen- all without a hint of foundation in the actual reality of this year.

Totally illegitimate Supreme Court.

The problem is lack of respect for the opinions of mankind. Lack of respect for every American.

That’s how out of touch they are.

Roberts’ indignation proved the case against the Court.

The Horribles (originally published in Midtown Monthly magazine, July 2010)

High weirdness was a regular feature of Sacramento’s early Independence Day parades

By William Burg

In the era following the Civil War, Sacramento and other cities celebrated July 4th with considerable reverence. After the long struggle, patriotism helped heal a wounded nation. In Sacramento, the Independence Day parade brought every local organization of note together, ending with a series of patriotic speeches, poems and reading of the Declaration of Independence at the Grand Pavilion. In the shadow of this solemnity, a band of ill-tempered and intemperate Sacramentans held their own parade, meant to poke the pompous and temper the seriousness of the occasion with acts of public lunacy. They were called the Horribles.

Led by a “General Sloverngovern,” the group began in 1867 as the “Bummers,” who marched dressed as women and Chinese workers, followed by an ersatz cannon made of old stovepipe, with pumpkins as ammunition, behind the main parade. Positive responses encouraged them to return the following year, and eventually they became an official part of the parade, paid a subsidy to sponsor them by the city.

Known as “the Fantastics” for a while, but later settling on the title of “Horribles,” their leader, sometimes called the “Jigadier Brindle” or “Generall Killemall,” always led the procession with his immense, bloody wooden sword, often accompanied by a threadbare “Uncle Sam” character, both mounted on the oldest, mangiest nags they could find. Entrants created floats that poked fun at local or national political figures or prominent businessmen. A “waffle wagon” that deep-fried and sugared blocks of wood, then hurled them at the crowd. A float labeled “Daniel in the Lion’s Den” featured a young man seated in a cage with several goats, dogs and cats. An acrobat, “Mademoiselle de Standononetoe,” made futile attempts to do acrobatic stunts on horseback while a barker described the amazing feats that she obviously couldn’t perform. A group of “genuine Indians” rode in a cart labeled “We Are The Native Sons of the Golden West,” poking fun at the “Native Sons,” an organization that, at the time, was limited to the California-born sons of Europeans. Marching bands played instruments constructed of scrap wood or tin cans, mangling patriotic and popular songs of the day. Generally, the “Horribles” made as much noise as possible, via fireworks, playing their improvised instruments, or simply howling and shouting as loudly as they could.

At the end of the procession, a trio of indignitaries, the Declaimer, the Orator and the Poet, took the podium at the Grand Pavilion in a ceremony known as the “Illiterate Exercises.” The Declaimer recited the annual “Declamation of Indignation,” the Orator delivered a speech, and the Poet read a poem. Each attempted to outdo the other with a stream of polysyllabic gibberish, except the Poet did so while trying to rhyme. The July 4, 1880 Orator’s speech started thus:

Most benevolent malefactors, most potent, grave and reverend saloon keepers: It was but a few moments ago that it came to my notice that I should have the misfortune to inflict you with this ornate gush of oratory. This effusion of mine is as spontaneous as the essay is impromptu. I began work on this oration some three months ago, and I am glad to say I haven’t got through with it yet.

In the summer of 1894, the massive Pullman Strike brought federal troops to Sacramento to dislodge strikers from the Southern Pacific Shops. Armies of strikers and soldiers faced off in a tense confrontation that eclipsed a small, subdued July 4 parade, with no “Horribles” present. The strike represented a turning point in American history, foreshadowing an era of industrial progress, with less tolerance for public tomfoolery.

Some Sacramentans, including the editors of the Sacramento Union, publicly opposed the presence of the “Horribles” in the parade, and considered them loutish, offensive and tasteless. Their occasional jabs against City Hall, the Board of Trustees, the police force and civic leaders won them few friends in city government. The last “Horribles” parade was held in 1898, after their city subsidy ended. The Horribles may have been out of place in the more straight-laced era of the late Gilded Age, or became an unwanted relic of Sacramento’s rowdy frontier past. Or, perhaps, they simply made fun of the wrong politician.

Postcard from the Edge.

Deep Belief Moment:

I believe…

This is a wave. A fantastic , skyward-rising wave, of political and religious influence.

It moves in direction with force. It seems overwhelming. Perhaps, for a brief time, it is.

Waves have crests and troughs. They scrape like bulldozers and crash through barriers.

Waves pick up whatever is there, detritus, seaweed, shells, and hoist it all heavenward.

They reflect a spark and sparkle and glimmer and roar. Terrifying immensity. A moving skyscraper of energy and absolute solidity, magnifying the sun.

One doesn’t hear the roar of tigers in America, but one can hear it in the sea.

Those riding the wave at the crest right now must feel a sense of power and dominance- of victory.

Until the wave breaks- and all that wave energy recedes.

And that wave energy will recede.

The tide is going out -for that political movement.

Perhaps not today. But that is not mere prophesy. It’s a law of nature that governs our survival.

Is Marjorie Taylor Green riding the crest, Kristi Noem? The Gang of Pirates, with exhilaration, that can see their houses from here, from there, from the crest of an ever-moving churning force, quite beyond human control?

Fame and fortune. Roe. Guns. The Anti-environmental movement. Tictoc politicians.

That tide is going to go out.

If you live by the sea it makes you wonder and reflect on its power.

Don’t turn your back on the ocean.

---

I haven’t seen any history nerds mention this, but this year-and throughout the years coming, a religious and political fervor rollls across the “heartland”; these political patterns rhyme with a previous era in our history, in the antebellum era- the Second Great Awakening.

“This awakening was unique in that it moved beyond the educated elite of New England to those who were less wealthy and less educated. The center of revivalism was the so-called Burned-over district in western New York. Named for its overabundance of hellfire-and-damnation preaching, the region produced dozens of new denominations, communal societies, and reform.”

Today’s is a manufactured, secular version of a time when church revivalism peaked, and hard-core religiosity gained a foothold in the public consciousness.

“It incited rancor and division between old traditionalists who insisted on the continuing importance of ritual and doctrine, and the new revivalists, who encouraged emotional involvement and personal commitment.” (wiki).

I’m not judging whether this is good or bad- it just is.

I’m no expert and in some ways we do have an opposite trend to early reform movements- perhaps today it’s a reactionary version. I don’t mean to oversimplify.

The sweeping nature of today’s provocative fascistic politics has a seed in the Awakening, and anyone who’s been to an evangelical church early in Trump would hear the prophesy that compels this wave of energy that threatens to overwhelm our institutions.

Knowing this, we can make some determinations, that the wave is temporary.
That the destruction appears permanent- because it has indeed placed the Nation into a crisis- but we are in the center of it. We do not know exactly where this goes.

Our institutions are being assailed- but, the onslaught of religious/political fervor does not translate well into policy.

Eventually Americans will have to come off of the psychotic Trump hallucinations and administer government.

The 80% of Americans that understand democracy as a form of social/ liberalism are not taking this challenge lying down.

So there is a great awakening of liberal democracy too- if we choose that, through defiance and activism and expertise.

So there is a warning and there is hope.

Covid-19: Five Short Chapters

Chapter 1.

At the little hospital break room, CNN. Wuhan, January. Coworker said “oh look- this is really bad.” He used to travel to Thailand every year.

I thought, this guy watches too much TV.

Chapter 2.

March 10, Covid ER unit opens. I was floated down there as part of a small nursing team to screen ER Covid walk- ins. The unit stayed empty that first evening, fortunately.

Also a separate enormous tent had been set up in an outdoor garage structure, just outside the ER, for any surge contingency.

That looks exactly like you’d see for a major earthquake, I was thinking as I came to work that day.

I wondered about the quarantined ship Grand Princess, and when and where the affected passengers would be taken. There were whispers that some would be brought here, but these were not born out.

March 10 the hospital is locked down by City ordinance. No family, no visitors. One checkpoint to enter. It’s a twilight zone now.

Chapter 3.

March 17 all Covid precautions are in place. Legal forms are available to sign for those nurses who consider conditions unsafe.

The precautions are in place, but in some respects tightened. The infection control person is everywhere, educating, reinforcing, correcting, revising. “Hey, take your mask off. Hey, put your mask on!”

Now, of course, masks are mandatory at all times.

No visitors, no family, and one checkpoint to enter.

Chapter 4.

Patients are only tested if they have fever and shortness of breath.

Gradually it becomes apparent that some testing is available. It was obvious that testing was initially severely limited.

Patients were either positive or negative or “rule out”, meaning not considered Covid.

Chapter 5.

March 28 or so I transported a body from ICU; patient had passed away in the Rotoprone Bed, which rotates a critical patient safely into supine position to relieve symptoms of ARDS, acute respiratory distress syndrome.

Everyone in gown, mask, goggles, gloves. I took the deceased on the special gurney through the back hallways below to the facility’s holding morgue. (Hello, Mr President, how’s your night going?)

Covid positive patients required total care. There weren’t many, perhaps three or four rooms with precaution tables outside the door. If you have PPE you’re technically not exposed to the virus, so …that’s good.

So today…

Hospitals are now ordered to maintain 35% capacity for a possible surge.

Our facility appears ready. It’s empty. And ICU is expanded, doubling its capacity of beds. It now has the look of a large open ward. Ready.

Extremely low census now. One med/surg floor is closed, one remains open.

“At least we’re working/ oh shoot, I have to work!” is the good news/bad news of the situation.

Now some staff is getting furloughed or using up holiday pay.

No one knows how this is going to play out.

This isn’t over.

Ok I guess I’m just going to have to write to the Department of Culture to find out what’s going on!

Did you see? That movie star just smacked that other film actor right across the face.

Well. I’m not surprised.

It’s exactly how I feel every time I turn the television on.

Reality? Oh please God, no.

I’ll tell you why.

It’s trying to attack me, my TV.

Example: The news anchor sometimes- quite unexpectedly, without warning- reaches right through my tv screen to poke me in the nose. Or at least that’s how it feels.

It’s annoying.

This is what television is. I think of the vintage toy some of us demoralized boomers grew up with, Rock’em Sock’em Robots. There really is no escape now. Your plastic feet are fused to the mat.

That’s how I feel everyday now!

It’s an endless apocalyptic chase-scene followed by a flaming crash and the epilogue, a smack-down of everything we hold dear.

The Bachelorette just threw wine in my face.

The host told me I have no talent go home.

(Wait. I AM home!)

And the former president oh never mind.

sigh.

So I understand the Slap Seen ‘Round the World. I’m not saying it makes sense, just that I understand exactly who was being slugged.

And my tv is a happy/slappy spy for Russia, to boot. (And a spy for everyone else.) So there’s that.

Have you considered buying a shack on an abandoned island, and then fixing it up into the perfect tiny house?

-No.

Ok I guess I’m just going to have to write to the Department of Culture to find out what’s going on!

Did you see? That movie star just smacked that other film actor right across the face.

Well. I’m not surprised.

It’s exactly how I feel every time I turn the television on.

Reality? Oh please God, no.

It’s trying to attack me, my TV.

Example: The news anchor sometimes- quite unexpectedly, without warning- reaches right through my tv screen to poke me in the nose.

It’s annoying.

This is what television is. I think of the vintage toy some of us demoralized boomers grew up with, Rock’em Sock’em Robots. There really is no escape now. Your plastic feet are fused to the mat.

That’s how I feel everyday now!

It’s an endless apocalyptic chase-scene followed by a flaming crash and the epilogue, a smack-down of everything we hold dear.

The Bachelorette just threw wine in my face.

The host told me I have no talent go home.

(Wait. I AM home.)

And the former president oh never mind.

sigh.

So I understand the Slap Seen Round the World. I’m not saying it makes sense. Just that I understand exactly who was being punched.

And my tv is a spy for Russia. (And everyone else.) So there’s that.

Have you considered buying a shack on an abandoned island, and then fixing it up into the perfect tiny house?

No.

Endgame

Looking forward to the thought experiment the Republicans must elucidate.

They must explain the endgame of Jan 6.

So let’s begin. It’s Jan 6.

Assume the Vice President is now dead. And the Speaker of the House is kidnapped or held hostage. Or tortured and murdered.

Imagine Senator Hawley has prevailed. The certification of electoral votes is halted. There are dead Americans everywhere in the Capitol.

The electoral votes are seized. Congress disbanded.

The president declared martial law, as was discussed with his top advisors.

The election is declared “on hold”.

Election equipment is seized in every state and data is sealed.

The 45th President is still in power.

Then what?

Incapacitated and incapable of governing in the midst of four existential crises, then what, Republicans?

Explain, Sen Josh Hawley. Explain the plan. Because you’re an integral part of it. You played a key role.

So the Capitol is seized. Congress disbanded.

And Trump is still president. He’s still golfing and ranting and the pandemic is roaring and unrest spreads like wildfire across the country.

Then what, Senator Graham?

Senators: Did you read about the Russian Revolution? That’s what Steve Bannon advocated, hoped would occur: the destruction of the “administrative state.”

And everything that had occurred was inevitable.

There is no scenario that doesn’t include storming the Capitol. It’s a historical inevitability, an absolute, a Reality.

It would have to result in a military dictatorship- this too would be an inevitable chapter, by default. Power vacuum.

So, Senator Hawley, you’d have to be jailed or somehow disappeared. Your ambitions are too…inconvenient for the long term. You are a hack, a beginner. The oligarchs will eat you for lunch and spit you out.

And the powers of Trump? They evaporate- his power was never legitimate. It was granted by an electorate that no longer exists after a violent insurgency breaks up the government. He’s a coward, and those with brute force and true malevolence would take his place.

Maybe that most malevolent one, seizing power would be Senator Graham. For a minute. He’d be Commissioner Graham over the temporary military district.

Or perhaps merely de-legitimizing the US government was the plan. And somehow Senator Hawley, the genius from Missouri, was right and President Lincoln was wrong.

And Mike Pence in this likely scenario would be dead. So no, it’s not a peaceful transition to a second term. That’s over.

It’s bullets -not ballots- that will prevail.

No, Republicans can’t just “take over” on behalf of the oligarchs. The military wing support a coup. Not this one.

So Senator Hawley, you’re telling us to go ahead, fire on Fort Sumter, that Lincoln’s murder was no big deal. That JFK was in the way, so a crossfire was a good idea. That the Cold War was stupid. Let things take care of themselves. Business as usual.

That’s the genius of Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley.

But they wouldn’t survive their own Insurrection. There is no place for them in the new authoritarian state. They’re incompetent, so they would be sidelined or imprisoned- if they were lucky.

Because without a system of balanced powers and good faith agreements we have violence. And we do have that, even before the Insurrection, in proportion to the injustice in the land.

There is no happy ending here for the Republicans.

Useful terms of address for the “president”*

1. occupant*
2. footnote*
3. asterisk*
4. mini-Mussolini*
5. mighty mouth*
6. herr helmet*
   5.mr melania*
7. the tic tac troll*
8. mr melania, sir* (correction}

The Happy Tourists of Terror Would Like the Non-Smoking Section of the Capitol Please

---

Ok this is a little off-topic I know but I think I saw something no other American has noticed, or noted, or even for one minute considered.

Fair warning: It’s about the Capitol attack.

I know: oy. Yuk. Damnit.

But hear me out.

Among the violent insurgents of the January 6 Insurrection- no one was smoking.

I don’t believe I saw one cigarette smoker in the Capitol. They broke every single regulation except that.

So that’s nice. I don’t think they smoked in the Rotunda after they broke in. It’s against the rules.

This is progress.

Americans used to smoke like chimneys. I’m not kidding. Decades ago it was thought smoking was good for you.

Why didn’t the rioters light up? They smashed windows, battered doors, and took a giant dump in the citadel of freedom. But no smoking. None.

-Oh they lit shit on fire, alright, but not butts.

Why? Why didn’t they smoke in the Capitol?

You and I know exactly why.

Because it’s against the rules, there’s a regulation, a social stigma, a public health concern, and, frankly, it’s really bad for you.

Stupid!

The Insurrectionists know one thing for sure: smoking is bad, and you can’t smoke in public spaces- especially civic buildings.

The other thing the Insurrectionists know is that you can’t smoke in school or in museums or even at church- which makes no sense since there is no mention of smoking cigarettes in the B-i-b-l-e, of which I am aware.

There is holy smoke, of course, and incense, and possibly Old Testament smoking of some sort, I would think. But no commandment, among the Twenty Commandments- (on Mel Brooks’ authority) shalling or thou-shalt-notting smoking.

There are churchly ideas of “be ye sacred” and of purity, so that might indicate a path, a virtual spin down Non-Smoking Avenue for some rioters, for the prodigiously and religiously addicted, but there is absolutely no such prohibition against the macho pro-cancer wing of the Right Wing of Wings, the Cargo Shorts Coalition. There’s no mandate, religious or political, to bring back the traditional value of huffing nicotine.

There was no smoking by the Tourists of Terror despite the liberty thing.

Maybe they vaped.

At the January 6 Wingding, non-smoking section please.

Trucks and cargo shorts notwithstanding, most rioters checked their firearms in Virginia and adhered to strict non-smoking regulation upon Entering the Capitol.

You know why.

Americans of the type that attacked the Capitol are conformists.

They are conditioned.

(…And laws and mandates forbidding smoking were largely successful and became self-enforcing. Again, why? You know why.)

Because Americans of the Capitol-Crapping Persuasion are conformists.
They are followers. Just like me, in my stupid blue jeans.

(Why the fuck do I even wear blue jeans? God damn it! And why do I refer to them as simply “jeans” and drop the word “blue”? And say stuff like “God damn it”?

Because I am a complete conformist, too.

Please God, just tell me what to do, give me a simple repetitive task that I can claim to do perfectly, to please the Boss, who is probably in orbit somewhere and doesn’t know I exist, but anyway, I’m proud in my absolute conformity. There’s a payoff. And a hidden price, for such an attitude.

The price is that eventually you end up screaming in a store, in public, on the Internet, finally in Warshinton DC, because you are a conformist and you hang around with Like-Minded People.

Fuck, excuse me, but I must use my words:

Like-minded People are now the absolute worst kind of people, in this reverse-engineered Burt Bacharach tune that is Life.

Like-Minded People thought attacking the US Government was ok, but remembered, they don’t allow smoking in the Rotunda.

We learned something fairly recent, not many decades ago, which one could only have learned in the years since the temporary defeat of the tobacco industry and the almost total banning of cigarettes in work spaces, beginning in 1995.

We saw that a habit, deeply engrained and corporately and legally subsidized, can be affected by change. Boring. But here’s the thing. Conformity kicks in.

So the Insurrectionists followed an important government regulation, in not smoking in the Capitol. There are limits.

Where is liberty, in the Land of Conformity?

Conformity seems like what happened back there in history leading up to and including World War Two in Europe. And supposedly we went there to fight that. 2 cents.

Not smoking on the path to anarchy due to rigorous conformity. Happy campers on the path to perdition, following directions from a lunatic. Makes alot of sense.

Lock step and then follow along. Do what they do. I thought it was ok. Everyone says so.

A Final Thought:

For the top One Percent in the US economy, this has been a good day. January 6, a good day. Every day a good day. Conformity is good business, insurrection is good tv.

Thank you, Insurrectionists, for not smoking.