AMERICAN ALPTRAUM - PART 1
WHAT ABOUT TRUMP
What about me? It isn't fair
What about me? It isn't fair
I've had enough, now I want more than my share
Can't you see, It’s how I live,
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
Can't you see, It’s how I live,
I just take more than I give.
Once upon a time, there were a group of
people that hated the United States. They hated the ideologies that formed the
foundation of the utopian image of modern Western Democracy and any who
supported it. Many of them claimed to be devout members of a religious group
but were nothing more than extremists inflicting their vile hypocrisy and
terrorism on everyone that dared to defy their demands. They brought death to
the US and misused the law to circumvent justice. They chanted hate as they
brandished and fired their guns.
They were led by horrible men who set an
example of moral and ethical corruption, twisted facts and told horrid lies to
create their own version of reality to justify what they said and did,
projected their worst personality flaws on their victims, mistreated and abused
women, and taught their children the same sick culture. They increased the size
of their militant forces, tricking angry and desperate poor people into
fighting to protect and increase the wealth and power of their leaders and
their children, who ruled like dictator kings and tyrants.
The underlings of their leaders gathered
together the names of political rivals and anybody else that did not do as they
demanded and spoke against them, threatening retribution. The greed of the
people that elected these despots was the result of a lack of good quality
public education and mental health care, and only eclipsed by their monumental
idiocy. While people within that culture were forced to work as little more than
impoverished indentured servants, their leaders amassed power and wealth with
the aid of zealous, mindless sycophants.
But still the ideological wars raged, and the
US spent billions of dollars sending young people to fight in brutal conflicts
on distant shores. Far too many died horrible deaths, and the rest returned
horribly maimed, suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorders, or both. And all
the while, the enemies were plotting within, spreading fear and dividing the
people of the US against one another. The leaders of these enemies of the US came
and went, visions of a world ruled by their philosophies proving to be one of
misery and injustice, but then they found a new leader.
Their new warlord claimed to be something he
was not, cloaked himself in lies that were obvious because the evidence spanned
decades and was there for everyone to see. He promised to give his followers
everything they wanted but was even worse than those that came before. It
didn’t matter. The people he manipulated were angry, frustrated, and motivated
by an abundance of stupidity and self-centred greed. His empty promises were
always intended to deceive and betray his followers for his own personal gain.
His name was Donald Trump.
A few days ago the world held its breath as
it waited to see what the people of the US would do during their Presidential
Election. We watched in shock and awe as they escalated the tradition of hiding
behind and pissing all over their flag, to taking a massive collective dump on
it, then wadded up and wiped their arses with their Constitution for good
measure. They were throwing a former-world-leading country-wide tantrum,
lashing out in protest to teach ‘the man’ a lesson.
They were righteously angry with neoliberalism
and the culmination of almost forty years of Trickle-down Economics,
effectively unregulated Capitalism, and globalisation, the root source of their
rise as a Super Power and cause of their socio-economic collapse. But it takes
a special kind of stupid to maintain that and, instead, throw away the
ideologies upon which the US was founded and vote into office the very epitome
of the horrors of US moral and ethical corruption and failure, the things that resulted
in the vast majority of its citizens living in poverty and inequality from
which few ever escape. The US has that special kind of stupid in abundance.
The so-called ‘silent majority’ celebrated their
victory in the same way they had campaigned, amid chants of “We hate Moslems!
We hate Blacks! We want our great country back!” And just like the campaign,
their claim to be the ‘silent majority’ was a lie. They were neither the
majority nor silent. Silent were wiser minds, the people they had bullied,
threatened, and terrorised for the last year and more, people who stared at
them with that curious mixture of shame and pity as they turned away. Those
wiser heads knew what the Trumplings did not. Trump may have won the election,
but the people of the US had all lost, and would be the poorer for it.
We have all seen the kind of celebrations
that followed Trump’s election. We’ve seen them in the Middle East, Russia,
North Korea, Nazi Germany, and every other society where Fascist Dick-tators
rise to power. We’ve seen what follows. Friends and family are given (despite a
lack of appropriate merit) positions of power, authority and opportunity to
gain wealth through fraud and corruption while the impoverished, oppressed
masses attempt to flee from those places. Some fled to the US in search of
hope, to find equality, justice, freedom and liberty, to escape the hell and
misery of its absence. And now we watched the people of the US trade it all and
sell their souls for false promises. You make a deal with the devil, you wake
up in hell.
In the days, weeks, months and years to come,
as those ill-educated, ignorant, and just plain idiotic Trump supporters begin
to drift away and we watch them make the walk of shame, reality will inevitably
set in. They will look back on Obama with regret, remembering the slogans “Yes
We Can” and “Choose Hope” with a fondness they never felt as they spat upon
everything he did to deliver on the promise of the utopian ideologies that were
supposed to form the foundations of the United States. They will wish those
days never ended, and that they had not bullied, insulted and threatened his
supporters, and fought to tear down every good thing Obama managed to
accomplish despite their idiotic resistance.
But most of all, they will ask themselves,
how did we get here? What happened? What should we have done differently?
Winston Churchill was once said to have commented that he had every confidence
that the people of the US would do the right thing “once they have exhausted
every other avenue.” He never actually said it, but it was believable and
explains why the world looks at the people of the US like a half-wit little
brother. He means well, and use to be the first in to help whenever he saw
someone in need or suffering injustice, but not anymore. Now he’s just a mean,
self-centred, vindictive little thug who was dropped on his head as a baby or
whose parents were brother and sister, someone who refuses to learn despite
ample warning signs and evidence of dangers.
How could you miss the lessons of the Global
Recession? The US Home Mortgage Scam? Brexit? The almost forty years of
Trickle-down Economics and - effectively - unregulated Capitalism? A Capitalist
society where policies are in place to ensure nepotism is enabled and the
corrupt avoid accountability is commonplace? Government administration where
stooges serve as department heads and managers to ensure they never attempt to
address even the most flawed policies and obvious systemic failures? A system
of socio-economic Plutocratic Fascism that stripped funding from good quality
public education and mental health services that left an entire society so
monumentally ill-educated and unhinged that it became the biggest bunch or
dumbasses ready to secure what can only be considered one of the most
spectacular epic fails in recorded history?
The people of the US watched all this unfold
and then, when the next con-man came along, they sold out for nothing, not even
blankets and beads or a handful of magic beans. Yes, it probably felt good to
lash out at the establishment and wreck everything with total certainty that
the lies Trump and Russia told them were true, but in the years to come, even
the most idiotic voters will begin to suspect what most sane people could already
see - they made a huge mistake. It has already started. Trump has already
created an inner circle founded on nepotism and stooges to run the US like he
runs all his businesses, and we know how that ends. Congratulations, majority
voters of the US, you screwed yourselves. No matter your excuses, if you voted
against Clinton by voting for Trump, or didn’t vote at all, you voted for
Trump. You voted into office something that is a big part of the problem. It
can’t be part of the solution. It won’t make things better for you. It will
make things worse.
But for every problem, there is an
opportunity. You have yet another one. The trick is, you have to consider the
things people like Tobias Stone do when they make historical comparisons to
Trump’s rise to power and possible flow-on effects and outcomes to his rhetoric
and ‘policies’, and the importance of understanding warning signs. Few voters
bothered to consider the bigger picture. Certainly not enough to make a
difference. They never considered the socio-economic impacts of massed
deportations, including of American citizens. The sudden drop in revenue from
promised tax cuts that were only ever designed to benefit the obscenely wealthy
like Trump himself. The eradication of red tape designed to protect the
interests of the public and workers on projects where investors like Trump himself
stand to make billions in profits. The conflict of interest where Trump choses
the next Supreme Court Justice despite his long history of being involved in
thousands of legal actions for offences including tax evasion, fraud, corruption,
sexual assaults, bankruptcies and the list goes on.
Then there’s the threats to overturn social
justice laws and imprison people for exercising those rights, including
marriage equality, abortion, reporting ‘alleged’ rapes, or simply daring to
stand against Trump in elections. And threats to murder the families,
potentially innocent women and children, of suspected terrorists? Suspected.
What happened to Due Process? Sanctioned murder based on no evidence to support
and justify it is terrorism. And what of the fallout for idiotic foreign policy
and trade decisions. Yes, tariffs are important, but causing Global Recession, enabling
human rights violations, doing nothing as hostile Nation-States invade and
annex territories and resources, and leaving former allies to be bled white
will impact on the US. The assumption that the former allies and enemies of the
US will be weakened so the US can repeat what they did in the Second World War
is idiotic. Nuclear weapons level the playing field. They level everything.
Trump’s ambitions for more wealth and power come with a hefty price tag – the
sacrifice of the lives and well-being of millions of other people.
It doesn’t take a genius to see these
potential concerns. It definitely doesn’t take a genius to dismiss them. There
was plenty of evidence during the campaign to demonstrate that. Any half-wit
can mock, insult, bully and shout wiser folk into silence. The same thing has
happened with the rise of every other dictator. But a repetition of the past
can easily be avoided. You just have to shut your ignorant, bigoted,
ill-educated pie-holes long enough to hear and engage the part of your brain
that uses cognitive processes that allow learning to occur. That’s the bit that
helps you do things like understand that when you find yourself in a hole (and
if you’re from the US, then it’s usually one you dug yourself into), digging
down further won’t get you out.
First, you need a brief introductory or refresher lesson in US history. Gather round, campers. The US was claimed and colonised by the English who gradually took the land (by force) from the Native American Indian people who were already there - makes you wonder why the US has never had one of their Indigenous people elected President, and if that will ever happen. The colonists were not just English. They came from all over the world. Some dispossessed from their land by greedy and or wealthy arseholes from their own country, others simply poor folk who came in search of a better life, their hope in the promise of the Americas all they had.
After a while, these colonists got fed up
with the greed and oppression of England demanding taxes, a cut of all their
labours in exchange for sweet Fanny Adams other than more oppression. This was
where the ideologies that formed the foundations of the US began. Freedom.
Equality. Justice. Liberty. Meritocracy. Accountability. Democracy. That
Liberty one is French. Actually, there is some evidence to suggest it was a
Scottish notion, but the French took the idea and really made it pop. The
French pitched in and helped out when push came to jack boot to the face and English
musket ball in the guts. It was the War of Independence and saw the creation of
the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. The French have done a lot
for the people of the US. Shame the yanks didn’t accept more, like ditching the
Imperial system for the Metric one the French created, or show real gratitude
and appreciation for what they got.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence
A hundred or so years later the people of
what would become the United States started squabbling amongst themselves over
various issues, including the belief slavery should or should not be abolished
and the slaves given freedom. It was the Civil War, an ideological conflict
deeply rooted in the notion of all men being created equal. They’d fought and squabbled
with the Mexicans too, mostly over land, missing opportunities to work together
over common interests every step of the way to – instead – continue rivalries
that began between the English and Spanish centuries earlier. Look how well
that worked out. Well done. And over a hundred and fifty years later there’s
still no real equality for not-white Americans. The Suffragette movement began
a few decades later but never really panned out. Over a hundred years later and
women still don’t have equal rights.
Then, over seventy years ago, the United Sates
entered the Second World War. Their President had shown what can only be
considered callous and opportunistic wisdom, to wait until the factions
involved were broken, near their end, and then engaged in the first real
demonstration of shock and awe. The US war machine took on mythical proportions
as it rolled over exhausted and demoralised enemy forces. In the post war
economies, while Europe, Russia, Asia and the Commonwealth were all struggling
to rebuild their shattered societies, the US dominated and quickly became a
technological super power. And that’s when everything started to go sideways.
The US engaged in near-to unregulated
Capitalism, where everything was reduced to a commodity, even legal outcomes
and human life. The Christian faith and its moral compass had been divided over
four hundred years ago between the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant
movement. Under Capitalism, it was divided multiple times, despite the warnings
in the Holy Bible itself, with many of the new denominations interpreting teachings
of Christ to suit their own vile, hypocritical agendas. Indeed, many of
Christ’s teachings were corrupted to justify the exact opposite of what he had
instructed, but it didn’t matter. The people of the US were equally corrupted.
Martin Luther King made his famous speech, speaking of a Dream of equality. Read what Martin Luther King said in that speech, and then replace every reference to Negro with impoverished US citizen. Suddenly that great man is speaking for almost every single citizen. The fact that his words are still relevant today because nothing has changed is shameful. That so many desperate, frustrated people hitched their wagon to the manipulative, empty false promises and blatant lies of Donald Trump is horrifying. More so because many black folks are on their knees in adoration of someone lauded by the Ku Klux Klan for speaking their rhetoric reveals just how foolish desperate, ill-educated, bigoted people have become.
The US went to war with the threat of
Communism in Korea and then Vietnam. Neither was a victory. Millions died, US
soldiers and citizens amongst them. Muhammad Ali demonstrated what could be
accomplished if someone with dedication worked hard and had the opportunity to
accomplish their dreams as promised by the illusion of US ideologies. The
American Dream. Success. Wealth. Fame. Fortune. But reality kicked in when he
was imprisoned for refusing to fight in a war he disagreed with when he was
drafted. He came from a poor background. And he was black. It didn’t matter
that he worked hard, was successful or earned what he had. The racial
discrimination in the US expanded – the unacknowledged class-race war in the US
had begun.
Almost forty years ago, the Plutocratic Fascists that ruled the United States under the disguise of what its citizens mistakenly believe is Capitalist Democracy unleashed a slow-burning weapon of mass destruction that allowed them to dominate, growing in wealth and power as they bled the working- and under- classes dry, and left nothing but scorched earth in their wake. Neoliberalism’s greatest weapon. Trickle-down Economics. Many Trump supporters demonstrate their lack of education by claiming Trickle-down Economics is a lie, not that it doesn’t work, but a something that doesn’t exist at all.
They claim Trickle-down economics is a lie, a hoax made up by ‘lefties’ for purposes only the deluded tin-foil hat brigade understand. Regardless of the idiocy, its affects are real. Trickle-down Economics is the cornerstone of neoliberalism. It promised greater wealth and prosperity for all. It was a deliberate deceit. It was a war of ideologies, one their targets were blissfully unaware had begun. Even today, most people still don’t understand that the very term Capitalist Democracy is an oxy-moron. The fundamental basics of both are ideologically opposed. Capitalism seeks to crush all competition and dominate. It does not accept any notions of equality and justice, the fundamentals of democracy.
The wealthy paid less taxes under that model. They got wealthier. They invested significantly less back into the economy than the collective wealth they accumulated. There was less money collected for revenue to spend on infrastructure, public education and health services. Taxation on the working class increased. Families could no longer survive on a single income and be able to purchase a home and car in exchange for only a few years of wages. Unemployment and poverty increased as globalisation and more advanced technologies reduced the need for employing manual labour in a world where excessive profits for owners was all that mattered.
Wages were reduced and working conditions became more dangerous in order to increase profits. The poor, the under- and un- employed, the majority of US citizens that formed the working- and under- classes, ethnic and religious groups, were vilified and demonised, blamed for socio-economic problems to justify austerity measures and wage cuts to ‘reign-in unsustainable wage growth’ and allow competition with foreign companies. This same rampant, entrenched culture of corruption can be found infecting every other modern Western society. But it was never unsustainable wage growth that was the problem. It was unsustainable profit margins and the wages and bonuses and entitlements of white collar management and politicians that has shafted everyone.
The evidence is all there. You just have to read, watch, and study it. Do the majority of people in the US have real freedom? Not the right to choose one crappy product or representative over another, but real freedom? No. Do they have equality? No. Not even in their Legal System. Legal outcomes have been reduced to a commodity that the most disadvantaged cannot access let alone afford. Which brings us to justice. Do they have that? No. Too often a legal outcome actually circumvents justice because it has been reduced to a commodity. Do they have liberty? No. the vast majority of people are little better than indentured servants. The rest are enslaved by the oppression of under-employment and poverty, struggling to survive one day to the next.
Meritocracy? No. They have a class system that prevents people from becoming all they can be, ensuring it is not what you know, opportunity and ability that guarantees success, but nepotism. College education has become a commodity, and as such, corruption allows grades to be bought and sold. A degree is no real guarantee that bearer is suitable for a role or even competent. There is no real social mobility. Society is like a bunch of sperm with no tails – sterile and nothing but one big, unending pregnant pause that cannot produce life. Accountability? No. The use of ‘self-regulation’, ‘internal investigations’ and reduction of legal outcomes to commodities ensures the morally and ethically bankrupt can use their ill-gotten gains to avoid any responsibility for their crimes.
And into this environment came a champion, telling the ill-educated, mentally unhinged, frustrated, angry masses exactly what they wanted to hear. Trump. He used the same bag of tricks every other shyster had used before, and they lapped it up. He projected all his worst personality traits on others and ranted offensive tirades of insults, threats and outrageous lies to discredit, intimidate and silence anyone that dared challenge him. His mindless mob of bobble-heads and human bollards did the same, bullying and even assaulting anyone that pointed out the obvious, shouting better and more educated people into silence. And when Trump proved what had been said by his actions, or other evidence emerged to support those warnings, his mob cheered all the louder, and lauded that vile hypocrite as a genius.
In the midst of all his misogynistic, racist,
bigoted, offensive comments, and allegations of him committing sexual assault
and worse, tapes emerged of things Trump had said and done that revealed
exactly what he was. Then he boasted that he could shoot someone and he still
wouldn’t lose voter support. It was true. He could have said “rape” instead of
“shoot” and it wouldn’t make any difference. His mindless mob were more than
happy to dismiss any negative reports as lies and attack anybody that dared to
mention them. The US media seemed oddly silent on the most damaging news
reports on Trump, but extremely focussed on anything about Clinton. In fact, he
and his mob demanded Hillary be imprisoned for alleged crimes that were just a
fraction of the crimes Trump himself had committed, even as they refused to
accept (or simply justified) what Trump had done.
There are many conspiracy theories about this and the involvement of James Comey, who implied there might be damaging emails about Clinton in a new twist to a previously closed case. The involvement of Russian hackers was beyond doubt, the enemies of the west using the abundance of stupidity in the US to divide and conquer. Trump refused to recognise any election outcome unless he won and some rumours claimed this was because the outcome had already been rigged in his favour - if he lost, he knew the Democrats had cheated. But the reality is much simpler. The mentality and intellect of his supporters is very limited and they are incapable of remaining objective, and if the results were real, then more than half of the media support Trump. It would explain a lot.
The allegations levelled at both candidates were often as disturbing as they were defamatory, with both Trump and Clinton camps trying to make as much as they could from even the slightest suggestion of moral and ethical corruption. The facts had no impact at all on Trump or his most sycophantic supporters because they didn’t care. They had been reduced to the very basics of human nature, and it was as unsettling as it was embarrassing and pitiful, but it got Trump elected. That is how democracy and ideological dreams of modern western society’s once greatest beacon died. Not with a whimper. Not with the brutality of war. But with the sound of thunderous applause and the racist chanting of ill-educated cowards and idiots.
But where were the media and other political representatives both domestic and foreign? Many politicians from countries outside the US expressed the same horror and disgust at Trump’s ranting tirades as the Democrats and even some Republicans, seeing the threat of history repeating, one that had caused so much death and misery decades before. Even China was shocked by the levels of depravity, and used the outcome to paint a picture of how the Western system had failed. They were right. Putin and Russia were ecstatic because Trump represented a future US just like their own culture, a Communist-Fascist Dictatorship.
The media had briefly dipped their toes in the shallow end of Trump’s disturbing rhetoric and history, but in the final weeks of the campaign many of those ‘negative’ stories began to vanish from the Internet. The alleged rape of a teenage girl with all its evidence had barely made the news. Trump extremists branded it a hoax and claimed the victim was a liar, apparently having been there at the time or privy to information from someone else who was. The case was eventually dropped amid allegations of threats against the alleged victim. We will never know the facts. Chances are the complainant and witnesses will simply vanish or die in suspicious circumstances. Now Trump has been elected, those sordid news reports have begun to vanish too. Only a few sources left their reports online. History was literally being rewritten before our eyes. The facts don’t matter. It was all about maintaining the integrity of the office. Nothing could be allowed to tarnish that image.
Jackie Trad, the Queensland State
Government’s Minister for Foreign Trade was challenged by the opposition, the
LNP equivalent of US extreme right-wing Republicans, demanding she apologise
for calling Trump out as a bigot over comments he had made during his election
campaign. The only thing that had changed was that voters had (apparently)
channelled mass stupidity to elect him their President. Trad refused, a rock of
integrity in a swirling ocean of political cowardice, opportunism and
corruption. The willingness to turn a blind eye to the behaviour of people like
Trump because of his wealth and status - even as we target those we consider
enemies for far less – is where that entrenched culture of corruption begins.
Did Trump rape that girl? Was she and the witness telling the truth? Are any of the other many, many allegations of similar crimes supposedly committed by Trump true? We don’t know. We probably never will. He is able to use his wealth and circumstances to ensure the people that bother him go away. Psychologists claim that the past behaviour of a person is an indicator of personality and can be used to predict future behaviour. In Trump’s case, his nature makes the allegations all too easy to believe, and his use of force and intimidation to bully, defame and silence opponents and critics adds to this. We are, therefore, forced to rely upon circumstantial evidence and make a judgement call, to take action to avoid potential harm in the future, but the collective self-centred greed and stupidity of those in positions to do what is right too often leads to greater harm.
One of the greatest Americans to ever live once said, “It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.” He climbed a great many metaphorical mountains, and men like Barak Obama did the same. They made great strides for everyone, and for US society. And every step of the way, people like Donald Trump have been the pebble in their shoe. Now, after eight years of building on the unstable foundations of what has become the US, of exhausting struggles to build a better society for everyone, the bullies have finally convinced enough fools that Obama and all his good work is so evil that they responded by electing a bully king to kick the sand castles down. And that’s all they’ll have left. Sand, nothing to show for all the effort, nothing but a self-centred, vindictive thug who can only bully, take and destroy.
In the face of his legacy being reduced to nothing but a lie, Obama has shown the same grace and dignity his wife demonstrates – “They take the low road, you take the high road.” Trump has had four wives. He listens to none of them. He spends his time doing to them what he tries to do to everyone else: controlling them, distrusting them, and eradicating any free will and personality they have to reduce them to a mindless servant. The nature of a marriage is the measure of those involved. It is an indicator of how well they listen to, and treat, others.
Obama also had something about him, an aura that earned respect and could convince you to work with him to accomplish good things. Trump uses aggression and intimidation to force others to do whatever he wants. Obama reminds us of what Ali once said: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” It always reminded me of the Butterfly Effect, of apparently small things that have a world changing affect. If you follow that train of thought, Ali may as well have told us to “Be the butterfly”. Obama certainly acted on that axiom. Sadly, good people are few and far between, and too many of the rest focus on stinging like a bee so they become nothing more than irritating little pricks.
In the decades to come, as historians pick over the ashes and rewritten history of the former United States, as they write papers on the fall of that empire, they will tell future generations the same things as what led to the fall of Rome, Nazi Germany, and every other two-bit, rotten, shitty little empire that raised corrupt traitors to positions of power, and brutalised and silenced patriots that dared to point out systemic failures, warning signs, and violations of the fundamental ideologies upon which those societies had been built. They will tell you what people like me are telling you here. Pay attention. This was how the utopian ideal of modern Western society scored an own goal. How it allowed its enemies to divide and conquer. How it fucked itself in the arse.
AMERICAN ALPTRAUM - PART 2
They claim Trickle-down economics is a lie, a hoax made up by ‘lefties’ for purposes only the deluded tin-foil hat brigade understand. Regardless of the idiocy, its affects are real. Trickle-down Economics is the cornerstone of neoliberalism. It promised greater wealth and prosperity for all. It was a deliberate deceit. It was a war of ideologies, one their targets were blissfully unaware had begun. Even today, most people still don’t understand that the very term Capitalist Democracy is an oxy-moron. The fundamental basics of both are ideologically opposed. Capitalism seeks to crush all competition and dominate. It does not accept any notions of equality and justice, the fundamentals of democracy.
The wealthy paid less taxes under that model. They got wealthier. They invested significantly less back into the economy than the collective wealth they accumulated. There was less money collected for revenue to spend on infrastructure, public education and health services. Taxation on the working class increased. Families could no longer survive on a single income and be able to purchase a home and car in exchange for only a few years of wages. Unemployment and poverty increased as globalisation and more advanced technologies reduced the need for employing manual labour in a world where excessive profits for owners was all that mattered.
Wages were reduced and working conditions became more dangerous in order to increase profits. The poor, the under- and un- employed, the majority of US citizens that formed the working- and under- classes, ethnic and religious groups, were vilified and demonised, blamed for socio-economic problems to justify austerity measures and wage cuts to ‘reign-in unsustainable wage growth’ and allow competition with foreign companies. This same rampant, entrenched culture of corruption can be found infecting every other modern Western society. But it was never unsustainable wage growth that was the problem. It was unsustainable profit margins and the wages and bonuses and entitlements of white collar management and politicians that has shafted everyone.
The evidence is all there. You just have to read, watch, and study it. Do the majority of people in the US have real freedom? Not the right to choose one crappy product or representative over another, but real freedom? No. Do they have equality? No. Not even in their Legal System. Legal outcomes have been reduced to a commodity that the most disadvantaged cannot access let alone afford. Which brings us to justice. Do they have that? No. Too often a legal outcome actually circumvents justice because it has been reduced to a commodity. Do they have liberty? No. the vast majority of people are little better than indentured servants. The rest are enslaved by the oppression of under-employment and poverty, struggling to survive one day to the next.
Meritocracy? No. They have a class system that prevents people from becoming all they can be, ensuring it is not what you know, opportunity and ability that guarantees success, but nepotism. College education has become a commodity, and as such, corruption allows grades to be bought and sold. A degree is no real guarantee that bearer is suitable for a role or even competent. There is no real social mobility. Society is like a bunch of sperm with no tails – sterile and nothing but one big, unending pregnant pause that cannot produce life. Accountability? No. The use of ‘self-regulation’, ‘internal investigations’ and reduction of legal outcomes to commodities ensures the morally and ethically bankrupt can use their ill-gotten gains to avoid any responsibility for their crimes.
And into this environment came a champion, telling the ill-educated, mentally unhinged, frustrated, angry masses exactly what they wanted to hear. Trump. He used the same bag of tricks every other shyster had used before, and they lapped it up. He projected all his worst personality traits on others and ranted offensive tirades of insults, threats and outrageous lies to discredit, intimidate and silence anyone that dared challenge him. His mindless mob of bobble-heads and human bollards did the same, bullying and even assaulting anyone that pointed out the obvious, shouting better and more educated people into silence. And when Trump proved what had been said by his actions, or other evidence emerged to support those warnings, his mob cheered all the louder, and lauded that vile hypocrite as a genius.
There are many conspiracy theories about this and the involvement of James Comey, who implied there might be damaging emails about Clinton in a new twist to a previously closed case. The involvement of Russian hackers was beyond doubt, the enemies of the west using the abundance of stupidity in the US to divide and conquer. Trump refused to recognise any election outcome unless he won and some rumours claimed this was because the outcome had already been rigged in his favour - if he lost, he knew the Democrats had cheated. But the reality is much simpler. The mentality and intellect of his supporters is very limited and they are incapable of remaining objective, and if the results were real, then more than half of the media support Trump. It would explain a lot.
The allegations levelled at both candidates were often as disturbing as they were defamatory, with both Trump and Clinton camps trying to make as much as they could from even the slightest suggestion of moral and ethical corruption. The facts had no impact at all on Trump or his most sycophantic supporters because they didn’t care. They had been reduced to the very basics of human nature, and it was as unsettling as it was embarrassing and pitiful, but it got Trump elected. That is how democracy and ideological dreams of modern western society’s once greatest beacon died. Not with a whimper. Not with the brutality of war. But with the sound of thunderous applause and the racist chanting of ill-educated cowards and idiots.
But where were the media and other political representatives both domestic and foreign? Many politicians from countries outside the US expressed the same horror and disgust at Trump’s ranting tirades as the Democrats and even some Republicans, seeing the threat of history repeating, one that had caused so much death and misery decades before. Even China was shocked by the levels of depravity, and used the outcome to paint a picture of how the Western system had failed. They were right. Putin and Russia were ecstatic because Trump represented a future US just like their own culture, a Communist-Fascist Dictatorship.
The media had briefly dipped their toes in the shallow end of Trump’s disturbing rhetoric and history, but in the final weeks of the campaign many of those ‘negative’ stories began to vanish from the Internet. The alleged rape of a teenage girl with all its evidence had barely made the news. Trump extremists branded it a hoax and claimed the victim was a liar, apparently having been there at the time or privy to information from someone else who was. The case was eventually dropped amid allegations of threats against the alleged victim. We will never know the facts. Chances are the complainant and witnesses will simply vanish or die in suspicious circumstances. Now Trump has been elected, those sordid news reports have begun to vanish too. Only a few sources left their reports online. History was literally being rewritten before our eyes. The facts don’t matter. It was all about maintaining the integrity of the office. Nothing could be allowed to tarnish that image.
Did Trump rape that girl? Was she and the witness telling the truth? Are any of the other many, many allegations of similar crimes supposedly committed by Trump true? We don’t know. We probably never will. He is able to use his wealth and circumstances to ensure the people that bother him go away. Psychologists claim that the past behaviour of a person is an indicator of personality and can be used to predict future behaviour. In Trump’s case, his nature makes the allegations all too easy to believe, and his use of force and intimidation to bully, defame and silence opponents and critics adds to this. We are, therefore, forced to rely upon circumstantial evidence and make a judgement call, to take action to avoid potential harm in the future, but the collective self-centred greed and stupidity of those in positions to do what is right too often leads to greater harm.
One of the greatest Americans to ever live once said, “It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.” He climbed a great many metaphorical mountains, and men like Barak Obama did the same. They made great strides for everyone, and for US society. And every step of the way, people like Donald Trump have been the pebble in their shoe. Now, after eight years of building on the unstable foundations of what has become the US, of exhausting struggles to build a better society for everyone, the bullies have finally convinced enough fools that Obama and all his good work is so evil that they responded by electing a bully king to kick the sand castles down. And that’s all they’ll have left. Sand, nothing to show for all the effort, nothing but a self-centred, vindictive thug who can only bully, take and destroy.
In the face of his legacy being reduced to nothing but a lie, Obama has shown the same grace and dignity his wife demonstrates – “They take the low road, you take the high road.” Trump has had four wives. He listens to none of them. He spends his time doing to them what he tries to do to everyone else: controlling them, distrusting them, and eradicating any free will and personality they have to reduce them to a mindless servant. The nature of a marriage is the measure of those involved. It is an indicator of how well they listen to, and treat, others.
Obama also had something about him, an aura that earned respect and could convince you to work with him to accomplish good things. Trump uses aggression and intimidation to force others to do whatever he wants. Obama reminds us of what Ali once said: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” It always reminded me of the Butterfly Effect, of apparently small things that have a world changing affect. If you follow that train of thought, Ali may as well have told us to “Be the butterfly”. Obama certainly acted on that axiom. Sadly, good people are few and far between, and too many of the rest focus on stinging like a bee so they become nothing more than irritating little pricks.
In the decades to come, as historians pick over the ashes and rewritten history of the former United States, as they write papers on the fall of that empire, they will tell future generations the same things as what led to the fall of Rome, Nazi Germany, and every other two-bit, rotten, shitty little empire that raised corrupt traitors to positions of power, and brutalised and silenced patriots that dared to point out systemic failures, warning signs, and violations of the fundamental ideologies upon which those societies had been built. They will tell you what people like me are telling you here. Pay attention. This was how the utopian ideal of modern Western society scored an own goal. How it allowed its enemies to divide and conquer. How it fucked itself in the arse.
AMERICAN ALPTRAUM - PART 2
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