The Pirate Ship Which is America
The pirates ships of yesteryear were rough companies, filled with a motley and ragtag crew often with nowhere else to go, little internal loyalty, but bound together by convenience and mutuality of self-interest. Or, more accurately, a symbiosis of self-interest. The biggest, baddest pirate got to be captain, and the rest eye-gouged and shanked one another to sort out the rest of the rankings. And nothing more closely resembles yesteryears’ pirate ships than the Trump administration and its constellation of supporters.
Captain Trump could not have won his election and avoided an orange jumpsuit but for a confederation of self-interested individuals and interests all willing to let all the others do as they wish to whomever they wish in any manner they wish, provided only that they get to satisfy their own wish list without restraint. Simply put, if I am on the inside, nothing is off limits provided I get what I want and nobody bothers me about it.
In what other civilized, or formerly civilized country, would the might of the federal health system be marshalled to supplant science-based health measures with quackery and snake oil? To chase the world’s leading medical science off into the waiting arms of competitors, or at least former allies? To throw open the doors to once-eradicated childhood scourges such as measles and polio? Good Lord, is this for real?
Where else in the world does a narrow band of off-the-wall voodoo economists get to run economic policy with suicidal tariffs and fiscal overdoses? When before in history has a nation’s military so effectively trashed its officer corps and debased its esprit de corps? (OK, yeah, maybe Stalin’s pre-WWII purge of the officer corps.)
Can you recall any other bagful of bozos who have spent billions of dollars to rid the country of the underclass who, simply to be allowed to stay, were the only ones willing to empty bedpans or pick fruit under a blazing sun for sub-minimum-wage-paid-under-the-table?
And outside Russia, China, and Iran, where else do you find the majority of the Supreme Court falling over themselves to dismantle a quarter millenium of legal and constitutional protection?
I could go on. But this kind of insanity isn’t possible unless somebody allows it, supports it, and pays for it. It’s the old “follow the money” thing. And if we do follow the money, guess what we find?
We find Big Sugar pressuring Trump to armtwist Coca Cola to replace corn syrup with cane sugar in their signature drinks. We find that Big Oil and the Coal Interests have their money pipeline going directly into the White House. We find Catholics and Evangelicals looking the other way while the current administration offends every one of Christ’s teachings, because they’re getting their wish lists of abolishing abortion, re-introducing capital punishment, rolling back same-sex rights, and a whole shopping list of goodies about which Jesus had not one kind word to say. Oppressing the homeless is OK so long as the Ten Commandments are posted on the classroom wall.
The list goes on, the 1% get even more tax breaks, polluting industries get environmental rollbacks, and the piracy continues, so long as each one of the big interest groups forming MAGA get their coveted prize. You want lower labour costs? Fine, let’s keep minimum wages at 1975 levels, now, for me, I’d like my nephew to be appointed to the circuit court…
Wheeling and dealing has always been integral to politics, even democratic politics, and especially in the USA since Citizens United allowed an untrammelled free market on political influence. But appointments such as Jeannette Piro and Alina Habba? Most of us in the legal business can only shake our heads, fairly confident we’ve never personally had a colleague so inept.
Someone has well said that if you hire clowns you should expect a circus, but the important question to ask is, “Who’s benefiting from the circus?”
It’s not hard to build a list of beneficiaries: Russia, China, Fox News, big oil, big coal, big sugar, the tech giants, the for-profit health industry, tobacco, megafarm corporations, conservative religious groups, the military-industrial complex, the NRA, and a whole rag-tag gang of malcontents and talk-radio hosts. None of these folks have your best interests in mind, and they’re ready, willing and able to buy your politicians.
This stuff isn’t random and it’s not a mystery. Follow the money.
Windows 10: Effective October 14 of this year (i.e. next week), Microsoft will discontinue support for Windows 10. While it will continue to work, the operating system will be increasingly vulnerable to malware, hackers, and other bad actors. Don’t just fear it, expect it. If you have computers which are too old to upgrade to Windows 11, don’t panic. Take a look at any Linux distro, such as Ubuntu (https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop) . Most are stupid easy to download, install, and run, and have lovely interfaces which can be made to look and act like Windows or even Apple. Virtually all your existing files can continue to be worked on, and the distro includes all the office tools and apps you’ll ever need. Best of all, they’re free to download and use, and have saved many an older but solid computer from the garbage dump.