Tag Archives: White House

That time again

Posted on February 13, 2018 by | 2 comments

We’ve seen enough  to allow us to draw some conclusions about the White House and those who occupy it these days.   They’re not bothering to wear masks anymore.

The storm of finger pointing and claims of authoritative evidence this side, that side, or some other side the daily deluge is not  going to bring sanity into the equation.  When all parties and at least two foreign governments illegally influenced the last elections or otherwise sold the country out maybe it’s time to back away a while.   See who’s left standing when the dust settles.

I seems clear nobody’s going to come out of this thing clean if they’ve occupied the White House since 1992, or aspired to occupy it.   And the irony that everyone in the White House or aspiring to be there sold their souls to the Russians ought to be funny because it’s too overwhelmingly absurd to be anything else.

What we do know, or ought to know, is that one way to become wealthy is get elected to National Office.   And that doing what makes you wealthy once in office is evidently universally irresistible.   Even when the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court dies in spang in the middle of a piece of a bribe payoff it barely raises an eyebrow.   It certainly doesn’t interrupt the public display of remorse at his loss.

I get all my news off Facebook and from Johnny, my neighbor-across-the-hall, who owns a television.   Watches sports, stock-car racing, weather, and picks up the occasional piece of juicy Washington gossip.

Which might be too much news for me to stomach.

Back in the Clinton years I vowed to go through an entire presidential term without knowing who was in the White House.   I would have succeeded, I think, were it not from the interruption of 9-11.   After that I gradually allowed news to creep back into my consciousness.

Now, it seems I can resign myself to be constantly dumbstruck, or I can just retreat back into my worship of Old Sol, listen to Gregorian chants mornings, classical music the rest of the day, and leave current events to those who love knowing them.

If I have the will power to manage it.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2018, America, Current Issues, Human Behavior, patriotism, Politics

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The Zen of politics – Romantic vs Classic forms

Posted on September 10, 2013 by | 4 comments

Hi readers. Thanks for the visit.

Probably some of you have noticed as I have that things in Washington D.C. aren’t always as they appear to be.

Moving the White House and Congress to Disneyland – A serious proposal

The reasons for this reach deeply into the psyche of the people who call themselves Americans. They’re entrenched in the idealized construct of the US Constitution and the romantic, dehumanized cardboard cutouts of the ‘founding fathers’, US presidents, generals, politicians and jurists. By definition their motives were pure, their decisions and actions were entirely driven by the desire to protect the rights of the future citizenry.

A classical view of all this would note a few contradictions inside the fog of idealism. The supposed ability of the judiciary, for instance, to shed the skin of partisanship and self-interest once sworn into office. The fact a substantial portion of the humanity born inside the borders, the ‘Indians’, were not to be included in the census, not to be taxed. In fact, were not citizens at all when it came to the protected rights of citizenship. The only protections the US Constitution provided them were treaty obligations approved by the US Congress. Even the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in 1868 pretended the tribes governed themselves and the US Government had no jurisdiction over them. Excluded for automatic citizenship even those who gave up tribal affiliations.

Keeping the options open, those realists. Kept them open until 1924, by which time the protection of any rights they might have had as citizens couldn’t do them a hell of a lot of good.

Not to say impartial or non-partisan Supreme Court jurists, or what happened to the rights of American Indians has anything to do with anything except reality.

The reality. Washington D.C. is inhabited by human beings looking out for their own best interests. They’ve pared the environment down so it’s contained in a two-party system to protect itself from intruders, outsiders, invaders. They’re all singing from the same songbook inside the conch shell where the only sound you hear is their ocean.

Whining about taxes, rights protected by Constitutional amendments, undeclared wars and candidates for National elected offices who aren’t blessed with chins can’t penetrate the walls of the conch shell.

The reality is that if any of that can be changed it can’t happen in a capsule of romantic form anchored to a past that never existed, celluloid people canonized in myth and a piece of paper with less substance than a US dollar.

Playing nicknack tallywack inside Washington’s two-party system only results in them throwing the dog a bone. But the dogs do love it.

That’s reality.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2013, America, Government, Politics

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