A few days ago I surmised that the new big three in the global realignment underway will be the US, Russia, and China. This is assuming Trump's mental state is intact. I see nothing to contradict that idea in Trump's no to Paris. The true deep states may be the ones under the control of Trump, Putin, and Xi.
Forget human rights. Forget tolerance. Forget democracy. If you want help, play along and get in line. If you don't like it, leave.
One percent solution
This is neo-liberalism, fascism, and yahooism mixed up and presented as reality, the way things are, the future.
We do not have the name yet. It is the one percent's assertion of control. It is post-Orwellian. It is the system we actually have now made as plain as day.
Trump Will Withdraw U.S. From Paris Climate Agreement https://t.co/EFDQlAG8iT
— Stephen C. Rose (@stephencrose) June 2, 2017
The Times is an ally
The Times and Trump are allies. The Times has, for a half century, chased the same thing Trump and Putin and Xi are chasing, mammon. Mammon is money sought for evil purposes.
You cannot serve God and mammon, the Bible says. You'll stumble and fall, the prophets say. The Times thinks it could survive by firing copy editors and maybe the public editor, all for a bit more mammon.
Dreaming
Trump says people who play by the rules and work hard and do right are fools.
Dogs are more civilized than we are. We design vocabularies to blur things. We live in a charade. This is a world envisioned by Jean Genet and Trump and Putin and Xi are the stars. If we can have both environment and 4 percent GDP we can have a little more mammon for the folk. This is the shaky premise of the one percent.
Dostoevsky
The conservative novelist Dostoevsky would no doubt be in a gulag now. Or dead by the highway. In "Underground Man" he surmised that we will finally do anything to prove we are human beings and not piano keys.
The best way to do that these days is to walk silently, speechless in the face of the assault on anything in us that might speak of values and redemption.
If enough of us walk nonviolently we can at least have the satisfaction of not having gone with madmen.
The Gail Collins solution
I will finally despair if the Times applies its ax to the likes of Gail Collins. The best antidote to authoritarian dictators is courage and humor. Gail has both. She regularly cleans Trump's clock in her columns.
Money is not the root of all evil. But in the hands of Trump, it becomes an instrument of evil. We need to even the playing field and load it with good values, despite the prevailing winds. Dylan reminds us that the wind can bring answers. It can even cure ruptured leadership.
