Destroying someone’s life by engaging in a conspiracy of false claims, led by an individual who we see has psychological "issues” that fills even her own child with paranoid delusions, wasn’t enough for a California judge to allow a charge of willful defamation to move forward. I downloaded the PDF file of the judge’s decision to strike the defamation aspect against Evan Rachel Wood from Marilyn Manson’s lawsuit; it should be noted that Los Angeles prosecutors after all this time seem to have found insufficient evidence to charge Manson with any crimes related to Wood’s claims, and had the investigation cleared him without the obviously politically-motivated delay, and it was found Wood and her co-conspirators’ claims to be essentially evidence-free, then the judge’s decision could be seen as especially egregious. I will take a look at the decision next week and see if it has any similarities to the judge’s bizarre decision in Johnny Depp’s UK libel case; just a cursory examination already suggests bias.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump was declared “guilty” by a New York court of “sexual abuse”—not rape as claimed by a former gossip writer—and ordered to pay her $5 million. Of course the question is whether this will make any difference with Trump supporters, and he didn’t waste any time degrading the accuser. Of course we saw that it didn’t take long for Republican voters to get over the “shock” of his indictment in the Stormy Daniels payoff, like rats who scramble to get back aboard the ship when they realized that as long as they stick together and don’t panic, the ship may still stay afloat a while longer. Such is the state of “morality” and “ethics” in this country, which of course if you listen to someone like Rep. Jim Jordan during one of his committee hearing rants, neither isn’t really the point; it doesn’t matter if what he says doesn’t make any sense, it is the “show” that matters.
Of course what Republicans think is an “entertaining” show to their gullible constituency looks like something else entirely to friends and foes alike in other countries. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russian and Chinese leaders are salivating over the spectacle of Republicans deliberately bringing this country to the fiscal cliff and giving it a kick over it merely for partisan politics. As has been pointed out by many, Republicans are pure hypocrites when it comes to the debt ceiling: a majority votes for a “clean” bill when a Republican is in the White House, but then reclaim their phony party of “fiscal responsibility” hypocrisy when a Democrat is in office.
Haines noted that our foreign enemies can portray this as “chaos” and this is what happens in countries with democratic governments. Of course “chaos” is used as an excuse by people with fascist impulses to rule like dictators. Such is the likes of Ron DeSantis, who identifies as Italian-American; perhaps Mussolini is his secret “idol.” We seldom see this in Western European countries where social programs are sacrosanct by all political parties, and where high taxes are the price people know they have to pay to maintain these programs in their old age. But in the U.S., old age programs are held hostage by far-right fanatics, and the people most affected by their destructive tendencies are the least of their concerns. They are only obsessed with their own power, and what results is of little interest to them as long as the other party is damaged more than they are.
But then again, the complete lack of understanding of how fiscal uncertainty effects the value of the dollar and financial and commodity markets is something we saw before, and Republican irresponsibility was largely to blame for the financial panics of 2001 and 2007. And were not all those tax cuts for corporations and the rich that every Republican administration passes supposed to be a “boon” to both the economy and creating all that “extra” tax dollars paid by “ordinary” people from all those new “high-paying jobs” created? Didn’t we learn anything from the fraud that was “trickle-down economics” that only increased the gap between the rich and everyone else?
So what else is chaotic in this country? Almost every day this year that has been a “mass shooting.” Yet how many of them were “worthy” of a “national” half-mast order by the federal government? Four. It seems that only certain types of mass shootings are worthy of the “honor”: a minimum of six deaths and some political angle to it. Five deaths don’t make it; there were 32 victims at the birthday party shooting in Alabama, but only four died—and besides, it wouldn’t “count” anyways because of suspected gang involvement. Domestic murder/suicides don’t count either.
The Allen, Texas mass shooting last week made the “grade” because the shooter, a Hispanic, was reportedly a right-wing extremist who targeted Asians, according to media reports. Oh, wait, five of the eight dead were non-Asian, and four were Hispanic, including two children. Asians of course are law-abiding people who don’t do horrific crimes like this; oh, wait, there was the Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay mass shootings this year. I guess what the point is here is that if we don’t want to be hypocrites about all of this, flags should be at half-mast all year long as a testimonial to gun violence in this country; nobody is "innocent" in all of this. But hey, we can’t help ourselves; that is the price we have to pay for our “freedom”—and worth every life spent, right?
Meanwhile, the media is catching on to the fact that Florida under DeSantis continues to be a hothouse for experimentation in fascism; even some in his own constituency are tiring of his war against Disney and its insistence on its free speech rights. We also learn that some extremist nut-job named Stew Peters has taken up residence in Florida and apparently plans to be the next Alex Jones. It isn’t enough that Jones was ordered to pay his entire bankroll and more to the victims of his lies, even though it appears he is trying to claim “bankruptcy” by hiding his money in shell companies or signing it over to family members.
Crazy is as crazy does. Peters is a white guy who supposedly was a “rapper” in between bounty hunting and far-right podcasting. His made a film called Died Suddenly, which claims that Covid vaccines killed millions of people “suddenly.” Of course all those stories about Covid-deniers who died “suddenly” from the virus, and some even belatedly “recanting” their previous beliefs, were left out of the film, but Peters isn’t interested in those stories because they just get in the way of the far-right conspiracy fiction he wants to tell.
Peters was interviewed recently by the BBC, in which it was pointed out to him that among other things he fabricated “evidence” from material that pre-dated the pandemic, and he was undermining his credibility by insisting that NFL player Damar Hamlin, who collapsed on the field during a game, had “died suddenly” from the vaccine. Hamlin, of course, is not only not dead, but his injury was due to a heart condition that was triggered by a hard hit during the game. When confronted with reality, Peters claimed that Hamlin was “indeed dead” and that his public appearances had been “faked.” Not for him to worry, though: he’s got an audience that is sucker for both the cleverly-crafted lie—and the not so “clever.”
And yet it seems to me that most people don’t think any of this is a “big deal.” Life goes on, right? Here in Seattle, that Big Earthquake could happen at any time, as could Mount Rainier blowing its top. Since I’ve been here I experienced a couple of “shakers,” but that was a “long time ago,” and out of sight, out of mind. We’ll “deal” with it when it happens—and of course when you just wait for disaster to happen, it is usually too late to do anything about it; all that is left to do is to try put everything back together with the rubble left behind, having learned nothing.
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