Here in Trumpland

Here in Trumpland

Is it just me; or are we currently living thru that newsreel clip at the start of every end of the world movie; you know, the one describing how the apocalypse unfolded?  Wars, famine, genocide across the globe, while here at home a  2nd rate reality TV personality is about to be sworn in as president of a country on the verge of a race war.

We go on about our daily lives despite all these disheartening events that nowadays seem to be spinning out of control, because it's the only sane option.  We leave all that ugliness "out there" and pretend it does not affect us, but it does.  It works upon our subconscious mind which does not buy the "out there" illusion of safety.  Despite our efforts to appear in clear control of ourselves, the apocalypse is gnawing at our subconscious every day.  Everything kinda flows together leaving us with a nebulous yet tangible sense that the world we know is disappearing a little more every day.

That effect is deepened when figures from pop culture check out in small groups as we saw in the waning days of last year.  Leonard Cohen, George Michaels, Carrie Fisher & Debbie Reynolds.  They always seem to depart in small groups as if they know something about the future we don't.  The passing of those who we admire in movies and music also serves to remind us of our own mortality, adding to that whole end of the year personal assessment thing; which included starting this new year off two weeks into a mercury retrograde.  So it is that a great many of us began this new year in sadness from our losses, a few misgivings, and a spine shivering foreboding of the future; here in Trumpland.


I had this friend named Rick when I lived in Alaska 30 years ago, kind of a mentor of sorts really since he was at least a decade older and wiser than me.  Over the years we had many engaging conversations on all kinds of topics;  but one particular evening stands out in memory.  Sitting around his fireplace one winter evening the conversation turned to politics, and the outrageous things our government was doing and getting away with.  At one point Rick went silent for maybe 30 seconds...as if he was trying to hear something faint & far away; the he says to me, "25 years from now it will all be government by terrorism..."  His words hung on the air as their meaning sank in and I was wondering what a world like that would look like.  Now I know, we all do.

The last few weeks we've seen a tsunami of stories about fake news, the alt-right, and the post truth era.  To begin with one must be a very keen observer to distinguish between real and fake news because we've been force fed fake news by the mainstream media for a few decades now.  The obvious fact here is that mainstream media doesn't like competition when it comes to selling lies.  We must look deeper than that to get at the real gritty truths.
First of all let's define a term here, the "Alt-right" is basically a handful of right wing extremists wrapped in Ku Klux Klan hoods and the confederate flag who think bringing slavery back would be a swell idea.  It is a hatful of the worst ideas we have ever heard trying to pass itself off as 'normal'.  What is the alt-right?  Just think of them as the alternate of all that is right, and you'll have it.  You may at first blush wonder why this is important, well, it's important because the very first person Trump appointed to his cabinet was Steve Bannon, from Breitbart news, the flagship website for the alt-right.  Bannon is now Trump's chief strategist and senior consultant; let that settle in a minute!

Are these the same people responsible for creating the whole the pizzagate gunman story and spreading it around the internet?  The problem is, as we saw, that someone thought the story that Hillary Clinton ran a child sex ring from the basement of a pizza business was true, then went there looking to sort things out with an assault rifle.  The investigation has taken on a life of it's own as many continue to delve into the story.  Is the story true?  Is it all a hoax?  Another cover-up?  Is it an attempt to muddy the waters so much the truth cannot be found?  At what point do we become so jaded and cynical that we just refuse to believe anything any more?

Another excellent example is Alex Jones, perhaps the world's leading conspiracy theorist, who Trump claims won him the election!  I just can't wait to see what job Alex gets in the Trump administration.  If these and other appointments don't send a cold shiver down your spine they should because they do not bode well for our future here in Trumpland.

Then there is the new and truly evil Facebook feature that allows you to flag any news story you don't like as "fake" news.  This is like trying to put out a fire out with gasoline, but then putting the fire out was never Zuckerberg's goal.  We got a peek at his goal back when it was discovered Facebook was deliberately messing with people's news feeds to see what would upset or anger them.  A real slime devil, that one.  The point here is to question Everything: for example the "drought" and "water shortages" are a ploy to privatize water, then use it as a means of coercion & intimidation.   There is no water problem on an ocean planet.  The problem is SALT, the solution is science!


We got a preview of coming atrocities when Trump picked Indiana governor Mike Pence as his vice president.  This guy is anti-veteran, anti-female, anti-LGBT and pro-big business.  He is essentially Trump's evil twin in the white house and a heartbeat as they say, from the presidency.  Trump has filled his administration with billionaires, racists, Nazi's and Klan members without so much as a whisper of indignation from a republican congress obsessed with obstructing Obama's term in office.  Seems they're just fine with Trump's cabinet picks; which is simply a deepening shade of treason to the American people.

The same do-nothing congress obsessed with Benghazi and email servers has said not a single word about investigating the Russians hacking of our election. When 17 security agencies all agree the hacking took place; only a fool would dispute the evidence claiming he had special information, as Trump did.  Only a bigger fool would then double down and publicly disparage all those intelligence analysts when it is they who are the very people charged with detecting threats to the president and country.  Or just maybe, the whole Russian hacking story is just more fake news?  Nobody knows.

Consider that Trump invited Russians to hack us during a debate on live television. Trump has numerous business deals with Russia: openly praises Putin as a smart leader; then names "Friend of Russia" medal recipient & ExxonMobil  CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state...we wonder how is that not treason, here in Trumpland? 

Now, in the category of "You just can't make this stuff up:"- Having trouble getting any name celebrities to perform at his inauguration, Trump actually booked "Black Jack," a famous Army horse to appear...which died in 1976!  So far, the only music group willing to be part of Trump's big day is the Mormon tabernacle choir; and one of them even quit the group rather than play for Trump.  They did manage to book Jackie Evancho to sing at the inauguration: You must remember her: 2nd place winner from America's got talent! Maybe he should try the Duck Dynasty boys, having them at the inauguration would seem somehow visually appropriate if not demographically accurate.