The childishness and hypocrisy of the far right knows no bounds. They cannot get past the reality of the Presidential election, and cannot admit, even to themselves, that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the President and Vice-President. Of the entire United States. Not just a piece of the country, the whole thing. Perhaps they cannot get past a failed coup d’etat designed to overturn that election, or that the insurrection has been met with disdain by a large part of the citizenry, as well as international concerns. Maybe they truly believed the former President, who convinced them a hare-brained plan to disrupt the confirmation of the election results would be successful. Perhaps they’re off their scheduled medications and having a prolonged panic attack. I don’t care what it is, but they really need to stop the juvenile and silly attacks on newly the elected leaders. Kamala Harris may be a lot of things, but Jezebel? Seriously? Not sure if the First Gentleman appreciates being seen as King Ahab.
To further illustrate the hypocrisy that characterizes some of these folks, the Senate’s impeachment trial for the former POTUS is winding down. After viewing graphicc video of the insurrection, including security video that showed the up close and personal moments the Capitol building was actually breached, many of the GOP Senators are still vowing to vote for acquittal of the former Orange In Chief. A few of them are cowering under a rejected claim that trial of a POTUS who has already left office is unconstitutional. Wrong. Still others, though, are desperately trying to make the case that spurring on agitated protesters wasn’t a particularly nice thing to do, but not impeachable. Um, fellas…he’s already been impeached, and that’s a one-way street. You can’t take it back. What you’re supposed to be doing is deciding whether or not he is convicted for the proverbial “high cirmes and misdemeanors”, the ones on video and stuff. They have all gone mad. It would not surprise me if the refused to convict him, but it would make me very sad. Unfortunately, this is the way of supremacy, and narcissism. It’s beginning to look as though such attributes may be inseparable in politics. Believing that you can make up your own facts, change reality, simply repeat a lie until even you aren’t sure of the actual truth…that’s pretty scary stuff.
Earlier today, CNN was droning on and on about the impeachment trial, and they said new information had been reported about what the POTUS was doing on January 6th. Aside from admiring himself in a mirror, I figure, he marshalled his posse at a rally, where he got them all stirred up. Then he said let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue (to the Capitol), and that he would be right there with them. Weeeeel, they did walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, but there was no sign of him, and without daddy they got into some trouble. He was home watching it all on television, according to the reports. When things started to go south, and they had evacuated the Vice-President (and his nuclear codes “footballl”), the House Minority Leader (Kevin McCarthy) called him, begging him to call off his dogs. His first response was … that’s Antifa. Not my people. Um, no sir, these are definitely your peeps. Please call them off. This is bad – they have evacuated your VP, and the building has been breached. We’re in trouble over here – call them off! Fearless leader that he is, the former POTUS responded, “Well, I guess those people are more upset about these election results than you are.” McCarthy uttered the single-most appropriate response of his career, I’m sure – “Who the f*ck do you think you’re talking to!??” Then he ran for his life. This was nuts, to say the least.
And still…GOP Senators are defending the cavalier do-nothing stance of the former President, as though it was no big deal, anybody would have reacted the same way. But, even more bizarre, Kevin McCarthy went down to Mar-a-lago a few days after all the hoopla, ostensibly to “kiss the ring” of the orange poobah. This is mafioso stuff. This is slimy, moldy, nasty stuff. It may, however, well explain why this President-no-more commands such loyalty from some of these Senate denizens…he’s got something on each and every one of them. They are scared to death of him, and what he might do to expose their misdeeds, embarrassments, boyish indiscretions and adult criminality. This guy has run his affairs like he was Don Corleone after the family took over Las Vegas. He doesn’t pay people for work done, he doesn’t respect anybody, and he grabs women by the pu**y whenever the mood strikes him. I’m sure there’s quite a lot more, but I don’t want to lose my dinner. McCarthy was given audience, and he probably did kiss the ring, but he also asked for the Don’s donor list. He didn’t get it. I’m sure he bowed profusely at the waist, but it was all for naught. The Don was not moved, and was probably more than a bit sardonic. If they all owe him for his silence, or his manipulation of other circumstances favorable to them, that would explain it all. Symbiotic relationships, between parasites, for the mutual use and abuse of all involved. Steep price to pay for the delusion of power.
The seamy underbelly of our government is the unabashed and shameless pursuit of what passes for power. He who dies with the most dollars wins, maybe…you owe, you owe, so off to Congress you go. He who can make you take food off your own momma’s plate is powerful. Bow down. Politics is that dirty of a game, and the playing field is covered with slime. Those spectacular sliding, one-handed catches are the result of the slime-skating. I don’t believe anyone who has risen in the ranks of the political scheme can remain totally untouched by that slime – it literally holds the system together. The political game is one of compromise, deal-making, building and tearing down all manner of relationships. You have to wheel and deal, lie, apologize, lie more, tell the truth, sometimes all before lunch. You have to wrestle with the pig, and whether the pig likes it is unimportant but you are definitely going to get dirty. It’s like Gilligan’s Island, with weapons. It’s a game of contradictions and conflict, alliances and isolationism, careful planning and flat out luck. This is oganized crime in some respects, actually; it’s definitely legalized gambling. This thing you do for me, I will not forget…but remember what i do for you, and one day I may come and ask you to do me a service., so be ready. That’s the contract, and nothing is free or gratuitous. In that world, justice and honor coincide with nothing we know as the law, other than the law of the streets – cheat me, rob me, embarrass me and you will pay, when you least expect it, and in a way that you can’t predict but will never forget. This is the law of the streets, not pristine juris prudence. Fairness is what justice looks like there, not torts and case law. People don’t need diplomas to comprehend that if one person steals from another, or harms another, there should be consequences, there should be punishment. So…one must know the rules of engagement before deciding to play the game, because there is no forgiveness or grace in this glorified Fight Club. And the first rule of Fight Club is…we don’t talk about Fight Club.
The concept of justice in our country was essentially contrived by Europeans a few centuries ago. That’s not a horrible thing, we had to start somewhere, but our concepts have not evolved. We’re still putting people in debtor’s prison because they can’t pay their debts, or stole goods in order to pay their debts, and once in prison they … can’t pay their debts. Why they were in debt to start with may be because they’re fundamentally irresponsible, or lazy, or simply of poor character. That happens. It could also be, however, because of systems at work on another field of play. None of us have a good “balcony view” of the interconnected systems that govern our lives. We decry systemic injustice, but frequently don’t know which systems we’re talking about. When ordinary humans, or even extraordinary humans, attempt to map the immense web of factors that contribute to one individual’s incarceration, they quickly become overwhelmed and declare the task impossible. Since it’s impossible, let’s keep our focus on the afflicted individual that prompted the exploration, and their personal choices. That is far more manageable, and that’s frequently where the analysis remains. Sometimes that looks like blaming the victim, and sometimes it just looks like neglect. In either case, it looks like it doesn’t work.
Unitarian Universalists have a core principle that affirms “respect for the interdependent web of all existencec of which we are a part”. I’m not entirely sure what all that means in practice, except maybe the respect part. The interdependent web of life…does that include things not possessing organic life? I say it does. I say the interdependent web of life can be contextually very different for people. My interdependent web involves a great many things over which I have no control, and a great many things that I choose. My eyes are brown, and a bit near-sighted. I can’t control that. I’m just over 5’1″ tall, and probably shrinking a bit, and I cannot control that. There are other attributes over which I exert total control, like which eye glasses I wear and which optometrist I choose to visit. The attributes I can’t control inform the choices I make, and those inform other aspects of how I interact with, quite literally, the World Wide Web. There are numerous opportunities for various webs to interact every day, every minute, every hour – the optometrist I choose has a web of personal and professional relationships, and I become proximate to all of those when I become proximate to her. Every aspect of that visit depends on some other web of existence…the eyeglass frames I choose have a web of their own, from materials procurement to marketing to manufacturing. The optometrist has a web that includes business realities, suppliers, professional associations, education. So, in the very simple decision to visit the optomoetrist, complete the diagnostic examination, select the glasses, and of course, pay for the services I have experienced the intersection of my web with an amazing number of other webs. It is mind-boggling how many intersections of this nature one may experience in any given day.
So many of us presume the interdependent web is primarily environmental, flora and fauna and things associated with terra firma. I say that doesn’t go far enough. I say the interdependent web is every thing I touch and everything that touches me and how that intersection came to be. Gotta dig deep for all those points of intersection, points of proximity. The principle statement says “the interdependent web of life”, not “the interdependent web of living things”. Life includes things living and not living, and some of the inorganic things are brought to life in ways we don’t think of as living. Music…notes on pieces of paper, strings vibrating according to principles of physics, wood resonating according to entirely physical properties. Is there life there? There is life, based on the intersection of the intersection of the sensory organs and the vibratory tones produced by the musician. Who made the strings, who carved the wood to produce the instrument, who instructed the musician, who wrote the music, who transcribed the music to paper, those are all interdependent webs…of which we are a part.
So, when people are running around claiming they want THEIR country back, I can rightfully say that it’s OUR country. No man is an island and all that stuff…not one paint chip in the U.S. Capitol stands alone, and did not depend on some other web of existence that produced it and caused it to be there. Every shard of clothing we are wearing, every bit of knowledge in our heads, every crumb of food we eat are part of an interdependent web. That would imply that we have some responsibility, some accountability, for whatever depends and connects with our web. Those connections are broken in so many places, fragmented in so many ways…not a good thing. This is how the Universe works, I assume. Celestial bodies circle each other, approaching and retreating in endlessly repetititve cycles. Just because. If one tilts slightly and comes too close to another, tidal or other physical properties will change on one or the other. It’s just the way our world rolls. It’s also the way humans roll, on a much smaller scale. What I do affects other stuff I can’t even comprehend, so I would be wise to spin my web correctly lest I catch something I really don’t want.
One final thought…as I am contemplating my interconnectedness and web intersectionality and interdependence and all that inter-work…i almost lost sight of the fact that if there’s a web, there’s a spider. A predator. A life form with one goal, one mission, one instinct – survival. I have met the spider, and she is me. There’s another train of thought entirely.
The Sound Hole 