Corruption

Last Thursday evening I responded to an invitation to a political meeting at the Seattle Public Library. I don't think I am betraying anyone, nor given anything away about talking on this, but I hope this stream of consciousness will make some positive contribution. We talked about corruption, and the objective was around asking our Congresswoman how she might be able to address some of the extraordinary amounts and flavors of corruption, in particular in the Trump Administration. This sent me into an extended bout of brain-storming and realizations that, though punctuated by the end of the meeting, has continued in my thoughts since then. This is not just fear or guilt driven, but this kind of realization sequence where, at least with me, I suddenly conceive all these connections and underlying aspects. These aspects did not hit me logically, but in a kind of random walk, and walking back, of conceptions and connections. I hope I can present these things logical enough to be maximally helpful.

Big in these aspects, is the fact that, no matter how wildly corrupt the Trump regime is (I think it is more accurate to call it a regime than an administration), The corruption it wields, which is fabulously complex, tortuous, energetic and incessant, is almost like a responsive facade to what I see as the corruption of the constituency that elected him. And I don't mean just MAGA, or whatever we are calling his base at this point, but the mainstream of the United States of America. All my life my fellow citizens have been longing to be told that their cars will keep working, the price of energy and food will stay low, that they should not worry so much about the environment, nor about fairness, nor justice. What really mattered is that you get yours, and then when you do, everything else will work out. Don't try to be in a community, let alone multiple tiers of communities, and though you might want to be nice to your neighbor, at least if he looks like you, don't worry about him too much. That is not necessary in the modern society. Yes. That.

And from what I can see, most "Americans" did exactly that. They did it while their Presidents were killing people around the world for fun and profit. Much of this killing was perhaps moderated by concern for looking really bad, but it happened, and still happens. Our "leaders" also spent extensive energies lowering the impositions of various rules the knowledge oriented people in our communities had "imposed" on us all, which is to say, they threw out constraints on our destructive excesses in ways that immediately helped our abilities to take it easy while accelerating the degeneration of the future lives of our descendants. Our representatives did this while being carefully subtle about it so we could largely avoid any difficult conversations about our guilt with this next generation; especially our own children of course.

And as you might expect, from this, in my lifetime (and as an extension going back decades, before me), we have killed tens of millions directly in military conflicts, and perhaps hundreds of millions from economic injustice, ecological disaster, famine, global heating, desertification, arms trade, support of evil regimes who replicate our example, and generally a wide array of side projects emulating our wonderful behavior. Once in a while somebody would get bad press, or people would learn too much about what is really going on, or somebody else would steal too obviously, and we would of course elect the Democrats to kind of patch things up just well enough so another thief or robber could then jump in and get things going again. All this time, the side effects on the domestic population were largely ignored, and we, the most powerful nation on the planet, would happily proceed in pitiful mediocrity, with a discernable substrate of emerging poverty, which as Carlin put it has the function of scaring the middle classes and keep them going to those "jobs". And thus we accept the rather obvious ignorance spoon fed to us by "our masters".

So, now, when somebody suggests I ask my Congresswoman how she will address some of the corruption in Washington D.C., perhaps you can anticipate my mind that I am having a problem asking a member of the representative class how she will tell people representing an utterly corrupt, ignorant, largely illiterate, intellectually lazy, degenerate, AND CORRUPT, constituency, how they will go against the tastes and preferences of those who elected them and magically, through eloquent constructive criticism, stop the antics of the popular despot they have chosen and make him "ease up" on his projects, while at the same time making the entire community of reprobates of which is this country, all better.

Should I ask my Congresswoman to tell everyone to stop driving cars, walk more, ride a bicycle, and take busses if they absolutely have to, and never take a car or airplane vacation ever again for the rest of their lives? Should I ask my Congresswoman to mention that there are over 8 billion humans and we live in the country where each human consumes more than any other on the planet, so please stop doing that, and be better planetary stewards? Perhaps I should ask my Congresswoman to stand up for elimination of 99% of the U.S.A. military, and divert monies into local green projects and a new income and wealth system that does not allow anyone to accumulate more than 10 times the wealth of the poorest in the community? These might all be good things to do, and if they might be followed, they would likely fix some of our problems. However, I don't think people will want any of that until we go through some episodes of dope slapping by mother nature that are very very severe, unignorable, and unforgettable. And I think that is why Donald Trump ended up getting elected, because what people really want is not to stop their personal corruptions, but to have a paragon of corruption that they can follow. He is someone who will lie the lies they long to hear, and whose antics they can laugh at and mimic so we can all keep doing what we are doing until the entirety of our nation can agree that the resulting suffering and difficulties the resulting mess imposes on us specifically, warrant change.

We have, after all, been trained to be this way. I am not for these endemic corruptions, but I do think to get anywhere else we must first put self-honesty at the foundation of our politics, rather than asking our congresscritters to do magic. That being said, though I will follow through on my original commitment, as honestly and fairly as I can, to bring the issue I was assigned to my Congresswoman's attention at this coming public meeting, I think my most potent aid to my fellows, which is to say those who actually care about what is going on, and not those who are just mindlessly in it for the ride, is the following starting point list on what you can, if you want, call corruption issues we all can take seriously:

1. As we are slating a near term situation where food and water will be scarce for the next generation, at the very least we should not ignore this, and keep it as a constant presence in policy matters, so that when people around us are starving and dying of thirst, we will not be found guilty of the very obvious crime of bringing it on while lying about it.
2. As clearly the biggest immediate cost to our antics in misappropriations is replacement of careful diplomacy and reason with military ventures and worldwide criminality, perhaps we could eliminate this very soon, so again we are not found guilty by our children and beaten to death in our living rooms.
3. As a major part of all this craziness is associated with vastly lessoned literacy and community empowerment, perhaps we can bring back more vital school infrastructure, independent journalism, safety nets and wealth ceilings so as to make thinking and learning safe for democracy.
4. We might want to not elect any more leaders who are so old that, even if their consciences are as pristine as can be possible, the incentives of their behaviors are no longer with maintaining a world that will be livible to them decades into the future.
5. Given that ICE, in its present form, is really reminiscent of the NAZI Brown Shirts (a group now in pre-history for virtually all alive in our time), Can we please dissolve or at least somewhat maximally mitigate its present tactics and excesses so that this specific organization, and its example, will not be further empowered and replicated?