The British royal "firm" still refuses to learn any lessons from the past about how to handle "issues"

 

Would you not think that it is the smart thing to do when “issues” arise is to address them—rather than covering them up—before they become a problem you can’t control? The British Royal “Firm” clearly has not learned from past experience on how to handle “issues,” and now we are seeing it becoming increasingly desperate to do the same old wrong thing by putting a lid on bad publicity, which it is utterly failing to do, and has only itself to blame.

It is being claimed that Martin Bashir, when he was working for the BBC in 1995, had somehow “tricked” Princess Diana into giving a controversial interview by playing on her paranoia about the “firm” being out to “get” her, which she already believed anyways. Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, served as her “gatekeeper,” and it was he who needed to be convinced to give the interview the go ahead; however, Spencer was probably not entirely opposed to the interview in any case, since Prince Charles had already admitted to adultery in a previous interview.

Bashir was nevertheless accused of conjuring a forged bank statement that appeared to show that royal staffers were being paid to spy on Diana and leak negative information about her to the press; given the fact that Diana had few friends in the “firm,” this was likely occurring, with or without such “evidence.” This didn’t stop Prince William from putting out a statement condemning Bashir, claiming that he put things in her head that were not true, making her “paranoid” and indirectly causing her death. We should take his statement for what it is: a desperate attempt to rewrite history and another pail of water on a fire that just refuses to be put out. The prince’s statement was an obvious attempt to throw shade over another “controversial” interview by his brother, Prince Harry, which aired on Apple TV+ a few days ago.

As pointed out, the “firm” didn’t learn anything from that experience with Princess Diana. Meghan Markle’s complaints about living with the “firm” in fact closely resembles that of Diana, who in that controversial interview claimed that “firm” was jealous of her being the “center of attention” of the media, and fed stories to the media that she was “unstable” and “mentally unbalanced”—enough to be considered a suitable candidate for a “rest home” so that she wouldn’t interfere with Prince Charles resuming a relationship with his now wife Camilla Parker-Bowles. None of this was actually “news”; much the same ground had been covered a few years earlier in Andrew Morton’s book on her life—the difference being that here Diana was on television speaking for herself in front of millions of viewers.

This interview was an entirely different circumstance than the book. Diana claimed that she had not been personally interviewed by Morton, and that the book’s content was all from “friends” and “intimates,” so that there was a smidgeon of “plausible deniability.” In fact, Morton admitted after her death that she was indeed—through an “intermediary”—responsible for most of the book’s content, and had even made an audio recording that more or less reiterated the same claims she made in the Bashir interview. The “shock” was that people were actually seeing her make those claims in person, which made them even more “shocking.” The “firm” wasn’t just appalled by the sympathy she received and how bad it made them look, but by what they felt was the “false” image the media had of her, at odds with the “emotionally unbalanced” princess they “knew”—and refused to help.

Meghan Markle seems to have had a similar (in some ways) experience as Diana. In her 2019 ITV interview, she claimed to have tried “hard” to “adopt” this “British sensibility of a stiff upper lip” and just block out the attacks on her by the British tabloid press. She admitted to being “naïve” about marrying into the British royal family, but more disturbing was that behind the scenes she was getting almost no support from the “firm.” In her Oprah interview earlier this year, she went further, claiming to have suicidal thoughts, and requests for therapy were denied. It was almost as if the rest of the royal family enjoyed seeing her suffer because of jealousy of all the attention she was getting as someone who was a literal “outsider” who had somehow gained admittance into the hallowed, guilded halls of the royal family.

For his part, Prince Harry has also chosen to “stray” from expectations, in order to protect himself and his family. He first brought up the accusation of “concern” by a member of the “firm” about the “race” of his firstborn son. In one of their first outings in the quest of being financially independent, on the Apple TV docueseries The Me You Can’t See, Harry admitted it took a little convincing to accept that he had “issues” since his mother’s death and needed to seek help. Perhaps indicative of the fact that during his return to the UK to attend his grandfather’s funeral, his meeting with his father and brother did not go well, and thus Harry felt under no further obligation to stay silent. He accused his father, Prince Charles, of being a “cold” parent and having been informed by him that since he “suffered” under the “system,” then Harry should expect to suffer too. Harry stated that he found it perplexing that his father cared so little about his and his brother William’s wellbeing, that they should not be “protected” from “trauma,” particularly of the tabloid press variety.

None of this went down well with the “firm” or the British press. Note that the “firm” used the Bashir “expose” the same way it did the smear campaign against Meghan Markle just prior to the Oprah interview, accusing her of bullying members of her staff and forcing them to quit. Of course, Mehgan is of a different sort from Princess Diana altogether—not just a self-assured career woman, but also not willing to play the game for the game’s sake: when it was clear that it wasn’t “working” for her, she pulled up stakes and Harry was more than willing to follow her, because he wanted a “break” from the bullshit too, and this was a perfect excuse for him to do so. Left to his own devices, as in his most recent interview, he has burned a few more bridges, leaving his father reportedly “boiling with anger” that he just won’t shut up about how bad things were. Prince Charles wants to “defend” himself, but he and the rest of the “firm” should have thought about that long ago before allowing things to reach this point. Harry and Meghan are in America now, are financially independent, and there are no gatekeepers to keep them quiet any longer.

But for Diana, behind the “glamour” was insecurity and temper tantrums, eating disorders and self-inflicted wounds to her arms and legs. She blamed this on the lack of emotional support from the family, and postnatal depression. She claimed that she sought “motherly” help from the Queen, who was apparently incapable of maternal affection, even for her own birth children, much like her husband Phillip was a “cold” parent. The Queen was also reportedly “disturbed” that Diana was more interested in mingling with people on the “outside,” especially in her charity work. In the Bashir interview, she accused the “firm” of being “uncaring”; after the interview—which again was merely a restatement of what was in the Morton book, but now with all “plausible deniability” gone—the Queen had enough and demanded the Charles and Diana divorce and get her out of the house.

What makes all this so bad is that the “buck” is supposed to stop with the person at the tippy top, but the Queen seems unable or unwilling to protect those under her wings from threat. The tabloid media stays a “respectful” distance from her, and she seems satisfied with that. But while the hypocritical media fauns on her, it is not sufficiently in “awe” or respectful of her enough to treat certain members of her own family with a modicum of dignity, instead with shameless lies and juvenilia as they did with Meghan.

Maybe it’s time that Aaron Rodgers takes his own advice and to “R-E-L-A-X

 

The Aaron Rodgers soap opera continues, with most sports commentators on his side about the “respect” issue. I think it is a bit cowardly for Rodgers to let others do all his “talking” for him, although we are told he is getting ready to make a “statement.”  Frankly, if this continues to be about the drafting of Jordan Love, and if Love is any more a “problem” for him than Brett Hundley was, then Rodgers’s probably needs to see a psychiatrist to deal with his feelings of “rejection.” Personally, I think the Packers wanted to see how he plays in 2021 before committing to another contract extension; 2020 could certainly have been an anomaly, since four of his previous five seasons saw his passer rating slip into the 90s, which if not “bad” was certainly below his usual standards.

Not everyone is a “fan” of Rodgers. Terry Bradshaw called him “weak-minded” and he needs to “grow up.”  Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe nearly came to blows a few weeks ago when Bayless called Rodgers a “choke” artist. Sharpe argued that if he is such a “choke” artist, then why do Packers want to hold on to him? But wait: wasn’t it Rodgers who was whining about the Packers supposedly not “wanting” him? All we are hearing now is that Rodgers doesn’t want to play on the team that made him a star, and not the “nobody” he thinks people once viewed him as.

Why can’t people call things by their right names in regard to Rodgers? Is Rodgers a “diva”? Yes. Does it matter? Yes, because if the team expects you to be the “face” of the franchise and the leader of the team, then you should act the part. Let’s face some reality here: Rodgers has always nursed grievances like a child, and perhaps they were "justified" when he was still a "kid." He went virtually unnoticed as a high school player, and the only Division 1 team to even offer him as much as a walk-on appearance was Illinois; he received a rejection letter from Purdue that he still talks about. He ended up playing for Butte Community College—that’s right, community college—and he was only noticed by Cal when they were scouting one of teammates.

You would think that he would have nice thoughts about his time at Cal, but no. What sticks in his mind is a female Cal professor giving his study group an “F” for “incorrectly” citing references, and when Rodgers approached her about it, she spoke to him condescendingly about athletes being “entitled,” telling him he’d never make it in the NFL, and wasn’t smart enough to get through school; apparently she wasn’t aware of his 1310 SAT score (out of the then 1600 maximum). It was just another grudge that he has nursed and never forgot. In an interview on In Depth with Graham Bensinger in 2016, he wore a Butte football t-shirt, which suggested Rodgers continues to have mixed feelings about Cal, which has not gone unnoticed by Cal fans.

Ron Souza was a coach on the Pleasant Valley High School football team when Rodgers played there, and he admits that during the 2005 draft he was called by NFL scouts who were wondering if Rodgers was so good, there must have been a reason why he wasn’t recruited out of high school. Was there some kind of “character” issue or a problem with the law or drugs they should know about? There was in fact a “character” issue, and it is manifesting itself more clearly now.

What were NFL scouts saying about Rodgers? He was a little “short” (you mean like Drew Brees and Russell Wilson?). He was a “system” quarterback who might not “adapt” to NFL play. He has been “busting his ass” to make it since high school, but does he have anything left in the tank? Alex Smith is a better “athlete.” Rodgers is just “ordinary.” He is “mechanically very rigid.” Jeff Tedford quarterbacks can’t make it to the next level. He can’t “create” on his own. Wilts under pressure and is easily flustered. Even today there are those who criticize his mechanics and footwork—and while admitting he plays well in the regular season, he is a “choker” in the playoffs. Rodgers doesn’t just “laugh” those comments off because they were for the most part proved wrong—he just continues to take them personally and “simmers” about them.

Rodgers had a “toxic” relationship with Mike McCarthy from the very beginning, and was upset with the Packers for hiring him. Why? Because McCarthy was the offensive coordinator of the 49ers the year they passed on Rodgers and drafted Alex Smith. Rodgers had been “humiliated” on draft day, claiming he was embarrassed by the failure of the phone to ring and that people he knew were laughing at him, and he blamed McCarthy. Nothing—I mean nothing—that Rodgers says about McCarthy or his complaints about him can be trusted as coming from an honest evaluation of the situation in Green Bay.

In 2011 the Packers went 15-1 and were an offensive juggernaut. In the divisional game against the eventual Super Bowl champion Giants—at home—Rodgers was horrible, playing arguably his worst game of his playoff life. In the 2014 NFC championship game against the Seahawks, it was very convenient for him to lay the blame with McCarthy despite the fact that it was the defense that was keeping the team in the game by forcing four turnovers and short field opportunities in the first half. On two fourth-and-goal opportunities McCarthy called for a field goal. Rodgers claims to have been “enraged”—but maybe more so because he wasn’t given the opportunity to “redeem” himself for failing to punch the ball in when the opportunity was handed to him on a silver platter. Rodgers was in fact playing with an injured shoulder and looked like it throughout the game.

After the loss to the Buccaneers in last year’s championship game, most still say that Rodgers should have been given another chance to “redeem” himself after three straight terrible passes on first-and-goal (and for that terrible interception late in the first half that led to a Buccaneer touchdown with just seconds left). LaFleur made the right call to kick a field goal. It was no “gimme” that Rodgers would convert on fourth down; if he failed, the Packers would still need to get the ball back to score a touchdown and make a 2-point conversion to tie—people keep forgetting that. Rodgers had already failed to convert in three 2-point conversion tries against the Rams and Buccaneers. At least in this scenario, if the Packers got the ball back—and they would have had to if Rodgers had misfired again, and they nearly did save for a questionable pass interference call—they wouldn’t have had to try for a 2-point conversion, which they would not had time to make up for if they missed it.

Yet here we go again with that “respect” thing that in all honesty disrespects Rodgers’ teammates who helped him get as far as he did. Tyler Dunn wrote in 2019 that “Nobody holds a grudge in any sport like Rodgers. When it comes to Rodgers, grudges do not merrily float away. They stick. They grow. They refuel.” Rodgers needs to “grow up” and—what was that he said?—R-E-L-A-X. The Packers will eventually have to move on without him anyways; the way he is acting, it doesn’t matter if it is sooner or later.

Republicans are showing themselves to be so fearful of the people that "cheating" is the only way they think they can "win"

 

The continuing joke-a-thon that is the Maricopa County “recount” in Arizona has been so badly mishandled that the final “report” promised by the absurdly partisan and conspiratorial “Cyber Ninjas” and their Trumpist paymasters is bound to be the subject of outrage no matter what that final “determination” is. They have all but promised election conspiracy believers and their Republican handlers in the Arizona State Senate that they will find some sort of “fraud”—or at least enough to claim that the election “could” have been “stolen,” and giving the Republican-controlled legislature an excuse to enact onerous voter suppression laws.

Not surprisingly, given the Cyber Ninjas’s amateur status and the use of untrained “inspectors,” there have been reports of ballots being mishandled and going through ridiculous “testing.” No Democrat is going to accept any result that claims “fraud” as anything but a sham, and there is great suspicion that Biden votes are being “scrutinized” a lot more “carefully” than Trump votes. Not helping to alleviate this suspicion is the fact that the fly-by-night company hired to inspect voting machines, Cyfer, claimed that they had “discovered” that entire data files had been deleted, but after county election officials told them where they were supposed to look for them, the company CEO covered-up the incompetence by falsely claiming that the “deleted” files had been “recovered.”

And if the Cyber Ninjas actually don’t find significant issues suggesting “fraud,” then of course the claims of incompetence and ballot mishandling are going to work against them with the Trumpists. Let’s face it: the intent of this recount in a majority Democratic county is not to assuage fears of “fraud,” but to undermine faith in the system. No matter what they “discover,” a substantial number of people will find fault with the result; it was better not to even have given credence to false election claims in the first place.

Political parties have only themselves to blame for election losses for not adapting themselves to changing circumstances. The British conservative party doesn’t believe in anything but power, and to keep it they “adapt” themselves to circumstances to maintain power; "cheating" is bad form. The “conservative” party in this country however, doesn’t “adapt”: it uses the hammer fist of voter suppression while doubling-down on extremist rhetoric that appeals to racist paranoia to maintain the loyalty of an extremist core.

The cynicism of Republicans is none more obvious than in Florida. Republicans have won the state in 13 of the last 18 presidential elections, including both times for Trump—which probably explains why no is claiming that election fraud occurred there. Yet Florida has followed Georgia in passing onerous election laws whose intent is to make it more difficult for certain future voters to be a “threat” to their power. The old adage “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” applies in Florida more than most states; Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed the Florida vote was the “most secure ever,” yet insists “more” can be done to make it even more secure.

But why? Although Trump easily won Florida, there were apparently some “concerning” developments for Republicans, mainly the fact that black and Hispanics voted in record numbers. Of course white people also voted in record numbers, but Republicans tend to ignore things like “context.” If Republicans assume that minorities “all” vote Democrat, then they must assume all whites vote Republican, because that is the only way the numbers can “crunch” in their favor. This obviously does work in states like Alabama and Mississippi, since that is the way voting usually shakes out by nature. But that isn’t entirely a clear line in most states, and in Florida, they have had to be more “creative” in their approach. Republicans did intend to eliminate all ballot drop boxes and ban using the Post Office for ballot delivery, but apparently this was discarded as hurting too many of their own voters.

One of the most bizarre of Florida’s new election laws is demonstrative of this “creativity.” Not only are the number ballot drop boxes being reduced—particularly harmful in heavily-populated urban areas, but they are only to be used during “business hours.” This means that unlike retired people who vote heavily Republican, or business people with a lot of time on their hands, working people have much less access to drop boxes or even the Post Office during their work day. Further, the Florida law restricts “ballot-harvesting”—meaning people who work during the day and are not allowed to take time off to drop off their ballots cannot give them to a “third-party” to drop them off for them, unless they are a family member.

Voters now have to request a mail-in ballot for every election. Voters cannot change registration data—like a new address or phone number—without first providing an “identifying” number. The law cynically creates a “no-influence zone” of 150 feet (that is, half a football field)—meaning offering water to people standing in line—yet allows candidates and their “observers” to interfere with the ballot-handling process from closer range.

DeSantis also signed into law a provision that will allow the governor the power of appointment of even local officials who normally would be elected to fill vacancies to replace those who resign office to run for another post; this is clearly aimed to reduce Democratic representation. He also supported a controversial “anti-riot” law which is vague and subject to “interpretation” of what constitutes “mob” intimidation, as well as the likely unconstitutional provision of making “cyber-intimidation” a crime. Three or more people “standing on or remaining in the street, highway or road” is now criminal “unlawful assembly.” Even Republican critics admit that this is yet another “solution in search of a problem” that nobody asked for and could harm their own supporters; others see this as benefitting DeSantis by limiting protests against his increasingly autocratic behavior.

What we are seeing is cynicism “run riot.” In a state that Republicans always expect to win, but lose for once, they don’t try to change their message to attract more votes—they try to suppress the vote and game the system just enough so that it tilts in their favor. In the case of Florida, it is the arrogance of power that drives them. And if that means continuing with a deliberate misinformation campaign to convince the weak of mind that there is something “wrong” with this country’s election system, then they will do it if no one stops them. 

The simple fact is that if anyone is guilty of election fraud, it is Republicans—deliberately acting by trickery, cheating and fabrication to “steal” the right to vote from as many citizens as they can. And they do this even when the Constitution already has a built-in mechanism to "game" the system in their favor, the Electoral College.

Save for those "immune" from the effects of the Trump virus, collective schizophrenia is what defines the Republican Party

 

Save for a few party members concerned about how the history books will judge them, Republicans seem to be inflicted with a collective case of schizophrenia. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, schizophrenia is defined as “any of a group of severe mental disorders that have in common such symptoms as hallucinations, delusions, blunted emotions, disordered thinking, and a withdrawal from reality.” Well, we can at least admit that they are giving a convincing impression of it. Republicans in Congress who claim Rep. Liz Cheney was “fired” from her leadership because they want to “move on” from Donald Trump’s election fraud claims are themselves “withdrawing from reality” by being purposefully delusional about the fact that Trump continues to replay his “stolen election” shtick over and over again like a broken record.

Even the events of January 6 have not proved to be a sufficiently powerful "medication" to at least suppress the worst impulses; Republicans in the House continue deluding themselves and their supporters that there is an "equivalency" about BLM protests and the intent to overthrow the government--just as some, like John Boehner, are making a false equivalency between the "Squad" and the destructive "Freedom Caucus." Congressmen like Rep. Andrew Clyde are clearly hallucinating when they claim that the attack on the Capitol building appeared to them to be a “normal tourist visit.” Clyde admitted that he was one of several people who tried to barricade the entrance of the House floor from what even he referred to as a “mob," but because they failed to breach the door, their actions could not be characterized as an “insurrection.” Well, they did breach the Senate chamber, so what does he call that? 

Perhaps it isn’t “fair” to call Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene schizophrenic; maybe she is suffering from just plain paranoid schizophrenia, which implies a genetic brain disorder. We have learned that it is a habit of hers to stalk and physically and verbally harass anyone who happens to “trigger” that broken synapse in her brain that causes her to go on another “mission” to assassinate someone’s character. Back in 2019, CNN’s investigative arm, KFile, reported that Greene and her cohorts had patrolled the halls of Congress looking for mainly minority female Democrats to insult, and “suggested” that “execution” was the “appropriate” punishment for “socialists.” 

The other day Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez merited a follow-up “visit,” with Greene obscenely trailing her in the halls and calling her a “terrorist” for supporting the BLM. Why would anyone want to allow someone like Greene whose ideology is ground-up in insane QAnon conspiracies even a shred of credibility by agreeing to “debate” her? Now that would be “nuts.” It seems that her fellow Republicans cynically prefer to let the “liberal” media take care of the business of “disciplining” Greene.

Of course we do remember how Republicans used to be “big” on playing international tough guy, although maybe that isn’t exactly true. They liked playing “tough” with Americans with progressive political views, usually referring to them as “reds” and ruining many careers in Hollywood, since they blamed “liberal” filmmakers and actors for “brainwashing” the public. For example, the 1937 film Black Legion with Humphrey Bogart was a major studio effort that dared to force America to confront racist and anti-immigrant “real Americans” dressed up in ridiculous hooded outfits just a decade after they marched proudly (including their women) in the same outfits in Washington D.C.

For good or ill, Richard Nixon turned from redbaiter in America to embracing the Chinese communist regime and making “pals” with the Soviet leadership, and after initially talking tough about the Soviet Union—I know, because I spent four years on the “front line” in West Germany—Ronald Reagan was just as eager to make friends with Mikhail Gorbachev. More recently, Trump went out of his way to make “friends” with Vladimir Putin, believe all his lies about Russian election interference, refusing to take seriously Russian cyber attacks and stabbing our democratic ally, the Ukraine, in the back by withholding congressionally-approved military aid to counter the aggression of his pal—who, after all, had already annexed the Crimea, which was Ukrainian sovereign territory.   

So perhaps it is not a surprise to learn from Newsweek that Republican and former Reagan Russia advisor and “expert” Suzanne Massie—who at age 90 seems to be nearing that age when many people are afflicted with dementia—has announced her desire to abandon this country and made a personal request to Putin to grant her Russian citizenship. She recently showed where her true “loyalties” lie when she appeared on the Russian propaganda organ NTV and bashed the Biden administration and the media for giving people the “wrong” impression about Putin and Russia generally. They are so “unfair” to Putin, conveniently ignoring the many political opponents and journalists who have been jailed or have been “mysteriously” murdered or poisoned; to say that Putin didn’t provide at least “tacit” approval for these actions is like saying Hitler had nothing to do with the Holocaust because there was never anything in “writing” that explicitly implicated him in that crime. Even Hitler had his “human” side; that doesn’t mean he was really a “good guy” deep down—and neither is Putin.

Massie, of course, can’t escape the accusation that she is a hypocrite bar none. Who unilaterally abandoned the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty originally signed by her precious Ronnie in 1987? Why, none other than Donald Trump in 2019. Not that there was no cause for it; Putin has not been exactly shy about boasting about new weapon systems, including an intermediate cruise missile that  may or may not be ready for prime time, given reports of failed tests leading to “mysterious” explosions, deaths and radiation poisoning. This and Putin’s annexation of the Crimea and his continuing  threats against the sovereignty of the Ukraine, interference in U.S. elections and cyber attacks on government and military IT are not the actions of a “gentleman” but of an enemy; no “friendly” nation does these things, and as long as Putin is in power, Russia is no “friend.”

Massie admits that some people will regard her as a “traitor” to her (previous) country. But I think it is more “explainable” by a mental illness caused by that virus that Trump expectorated all over the country, infecting tens of millions of people. It is rather ironic that the people most eager to “cure” themselves of the Trump virus are white nationalist extremists like the Proud Boys, a leader of whom recently released an expletive-laden denouncement of Trump for “abandoning” them in their time of “need,” since true “friends” do not do that.

The problem with the entertainment media today is too much empty space filled with vacuity

 

The other day while web surfing I came upon a commentary by Melanie McFarland, a film and television critic for Salon. I generally don’t trust reviewers like McFarland, because they approach their subjects from a political viewpoint (in her case, gender) that judges a film or television show by the way it satisfies their political perspective. In this particular commentary, McFarland claimed that “cancel culture” is not the reason for today’s films and television programming not being particularly worthwhile, but because of the “Endless franchising of culture and pursuit of the same…that’s what’s knifing originality to death.”

Comic book movies are increasingly redundant, surviving on "cool" CGI rather than story. Of course, for McFarland programming that is narrowly-tailored to appeal to the female audience’s self-obsessions is what qualifies as “originality,” since in the same article she praises programming that is produced/and or focused on women. But frankly, portraying women as either “superhuman” or perpetual “victims” is getting a bit “old” as well, and doesn’t interest viewers like me, anyways.

I have my ideas about why much of today’s entertainment media “sucks.” It isn’t that there is nothing at all that I have seen in the past 20 years that I “like”; Curb Your Enthusiasm, Archer and Arrested Development I think were kind of “OK,” and the Starz’s Spartacus series I’m happy to have in my video collection. But we live in a time where there is too much empty space that has to be filled with something, even vacuity. Before cable television there were just three television networks, PBS and a few public access and UHF channels, the latter which in the early days was limited due to poor reception. The “big three” dominated original programing, and they competed with each other for the best available product. Sure, there was a “captive” audience given the limited number of outlets, but back then, programing that would be canceled mid-season would likely be number one in the ratings today.

There are no “original” story lines, just different ways of telling them with different actors providing their own personal “spin.”  Television in the 1970s aimed for “normal” people with typical working class lives; today, you see very little of that, with a focus on characters who are well-to-do with problems that seem alien to working people. In order to placate them, they are fed the circus sideshow of comic book fare.

That is in contrast to certain shows produced in the 1960s, even those that lasted just two or three years, yet became bigger “hits” in syndication in the 70s and 80s than they ever were in their first runs (Star Trek being the most successful at reincarnating itself), because many shows of that period benefited from both memorable characters and their appeal to elemental features in human psyche. Of course, when I was a kid The Three Stooges was must-see viewing, and there is just something to be said about a show in which cartoon violence and stupidity has a lot more relevance in today's political and social environment than it did back then.

Cream usually rises to the top, but not so today. Back in the day, a true “star” was someone who didn’t need to act “great,” they just had that certain personal charisma that “sold” whatever role they were in. Today, programing needs requiring dredging the bottom for any actor who looks good and can read lines.  Of course you can’t just blame the actors entirely, since writers have to write what comes out of their mouths; dialogue so often sounds like people trying to impress each other with grandiloquent bullshit. And let's face it: screen writers used to be stars in their own right; today they are just faking it.

Grounding life in reality is probably too much to ask of an industry which creates lives in a make-believe world that most of us do not recognize. Political pretentiousness that satisfies the self-obsession and self-deception of particular interest groups appeals to a very limited audience, and such shows would have died a quick death back in the day. It’s amazing to me how I watch movies even from 1930s and people just seem more “normal” than what you see today. But for the past decade or two, I watch movies and television and it’s a world I neither understand nor like. Gender politics and “white-washing” the black experience are especially eye-rolling for me; yeah, you are allowed to portray Hispanics as either violent drug dealers or illegal immigrant day laborers, but it is politically-incorrect to show the reality that white women are not the morally “pure” people they pretend to be, nor the perfect “victims”:

 

Nor, on the other hand, do all black people behave in an “innocent” fashion:

It isn’t just current film and television that I simply have little liking of, save for those that recycle the old hands. I dislike current popular “music” in its various forms (we used to call them “genres”), for which there is an almost entire absence of that common thread that tied together musical forms from the earliest times, through musical instrumentation, melody, and even actual singing. Today, rap and hip-hop have almost entirely discarded the elements that made music a reason people wanted to live and gave them positive energy. Instead, what we get is negative vibes that promote incivility and sometimes even violence. Peace, love, just getting along—who wants that anymore? Even “white” music today is mostly tinny, whiny noise.  Whatever happened to people singing in their natural voices? That shares the same issue with films and television: what kind of “personality” and immediacy do you get from computerized auto-tune “singing”?

Well, of course this is all my personal opinion. The ironic thing is that people have more viewing choices than when I was young, yet they seem to see much less. I suppose it must say something for people like me who are avid collectors of videos and records that what is “new” these days is usually old. Every time I think I have everything I “need,” I discover “lost” gems (at least in this country) like Jerzy Skolimowski’s film Deep End and Kiki Dee’s Motown album, Great Expectations; both are 50 years old, yet as “ancient” as they are, finding such as this still make life worth living instead of crawling in a hole, hoping to drown out today’s noise.

Just your usual day of active-duty prejudice

 

If I say I encounter prejudice every day it isn’t hyperbole or exaggeration; it comes with the “territory.” “Red flags” are instantly raised inside the ignorant of mind because your apparent “ethnicity” identifies you as not being a “real” American, and you don’t have the same “right” to “innocent until proven guilty.” This includes deliberate rudeness, microaggression, presumptions that you are shoplifter, car prowler, sexual pervert or someone who—thanks to media and film stereotypes—is seen as naturally “wired” to being  “bad,” and someone people have to keep an eye on at all times. Oh, wait: did I forget to mention drug dealer? I don't suppose you need to ask how many times I've been asked by complete strangers if I had any pot and meth on me to sell.

For me, last Friday was a typical day in the life. In the morning I was walking with a gym bag to the local laundromat, and on the way I passed an unoccupied retail space which had a pane of glass shattered. A few hours later I was walking back when I observed a white man with some tools on his way to join another white man who was fixing the window. He was glaring at me with the evil eye. Did he think that one of “my kind” was responsible for it, because isn’t that what Trump and Fox News keeps telling people like him, that we are all “bad hombres”? Around this neck of the woods, it was almost certainly the work of a white vagrant with mental issues and a mean streak. Besides, during the “protests” last year in Seattle, vandalism was almost entirely the work of whites and blacks; yet for some people, if you mix white and black together, they come out “brown,” so just blame all the “brown” people.                         1                     

But that was just the start of the day. I have a very large collection of video discs, unfortunately made easier to acquire by the existence of Amazon. To make life more convenient I copy most of them to external hard drives, and store the hard discs at a rented space at a U-Haul “supercenter.” Depending on how many discs I purchased, I go there once a week to either drop the latest acquisitions off, or dig around looking for an old out-of-print title that is too expensive to replace, and that can take hours of digging. On this day I was just “dropping,” and it took just the time to unlock the roll-up gate, toss a bag inside, and shut it. That was it. But as I was relocking the gate, the alarm suddenly went off. I, unfortunately, was used to this. Normally the alarm should only go off if you had not slid your security access card in the machine at the entrance, which I never forget to do. But there is a security camera installed near my unit, and depending on how paranoid the bigot is who is monitoring the camera, I can always count on the alarm to go off at some point. Usually it only stays on for 30 seconds and shuts off just to let me know that someone has their “eye” on me, but this time it stayed on until I walked out of camera range.

That usually would have been the end of it, except that when I stopped by a water fountain in front lobby area, another alarm went off, so loud it was literally ear-splitting. There was an eye-level camera just a few feet away from where I was standing where the alarm mechanism was also located. I was the only person in sight, so I knew I was being targeted for harassment and abuse; I turned around and looked directly at the camera and gave whoever the bigoted asshole was a Nazi salute, and the alarm continued until the moment I walked outside. I had to use my access card again to “sign out.” This person could monitor when I accessed my unit, so why the abusive behavior unless it was a racist reaction? I considered whether I should go to the front office to confront the person who did this, or file a complaint with the main office; I’ll do the latter.

Unfortunately, the day wasn’t over yet. Later I went to a 7-Eleven to purchase a few items, including the largest size fountain drink they had, which is the “Double Gulp” double extra large, which is  priced  at $2.09 plus tax. But this store didn’t have any of those, just the “Super Big Gulp” extra large, which was $1.79 plus tax. As you can see in the image below, there is a considerable size difference between them:

 

So I had to settle for the “Super Big Gulp,” and put it on the counter along with a few other items. As they were being rung up, I observed on the purchase screen the following:

“Db XLFountainCup  2.09”

With a mind already on the lookout for every instance of negativity, my outrage sprung into action: I pointed out to the Indian clerk that she had charged me the “Double Gulp” price for the “Super Big Gulp” size. She insisted that the price was “correct” because that was what was scanned. I pointed out the cup size that was written on the cup itself, and that the scan price on this cup size had been wrongly imputed. But with a bunch of people crowded around, she apparently felt under personal attack and resorted to rudeness and denial. I told her I wasn’t coming back there again, and she said fine, they have a “lot” of customers. Yeah, like people don’t have “options” for 7-Elevens a five-minute drive or less away:

 

It didn’t matter, since I tended to “boycott” this particular location anyways. I had gone there for a decade almost every day when the employees were members of the local community. The people who worked there even bothered to know your name if you were a “regular.” But that all changed when the location was shutdown, the old building removed and replaced. The “new” franchise owner and employees were of course South Asian, just like all the rest. Now, you can say “What’s the big deal about being overcharged 30 cents?” Well, that is certainly what people who are cheating customers want you to think. But consider: how many of these size cups are sold every day? 100? Multiply that by 365 and that comes out to almost $11,000 a year. You think that is the only item “accidentally” priced higher than it is supposed to be? I mean, that is theft and cheating customers—and everyone is being treated like they are just some dumb “Mexican” who supposedly can’t read English or count.  

Maybe because I made such a fuss, the scan will be changed to the correct price, but a complaint filed with the company is still in order. I mean, somebody has to watch these people, too. You just don’t know who to trust these days. I was in a different convenience store yesterday when I observed what appeared to be Southeast Asian male wearing a hoodie come in; while I was looking in the refrigerator section, I heard the clerk shout at someone, and turning around I saw the guy in hoodie walking out with a fountain drink without paying for it. I observed to the clerk if you can’t trust a “model minority,” who can you trust?

Don't look to the UK to set an example of "good governance"

 

On Thursday, Florida added 4,000 new cases of the COVID-19 and 47 new deaths, and has been leading the nation in daily new cases for the past few weeks. This is after Sean Hannity—having been “abandoned” by Donald Trump and falling behind Tucker Carlson in the ratings—expectorated out of all his sluices over Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, “doing everything right” in regard to his pandemic response.  Last year Nate Monroe of The Florida Times-Union begged to differ during the first wave, arguing that DeSantis “has done his level best to undermine just about every common-sense effort by local governments to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.” Two months ago the American Journal of Public Health accused DeSantis of not just botching the state’s coronavirus response, but claiming that the state had deliberately undercounted the number of cases and deaths. It found at that time that Florida had almost 5,000 excess deaths compared to previous years beyond that which were accounted for by the virus, and none of them were counted as COVID-related even though the virus was present in most of those cases, and had probably exacerbated previous conditions leading to premature death.

Politically-appointed “medical examiners” serving at the pleasure of DeSantis were responsible for these undercounts. The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported that one medical examiner, Dr. David Stewart, was especially eager to please DeSantis and was responsible for much of this undercount in the half-dozen counties in his jurisdiction. It was this deliberate effort to manipulate the true death numbers that state data scientist Rebekah Jones allegedly had been ordered to do on the state's official tracking website; she was fired for “insubordination,” and her home was raided by police. It is now being reported that she may not be all she claimed, but we are still expected to discount the AJPH findings, when we know that the numbers were manipulated at the behest of DeSantis for political reasons? DeSantis went well beyond what Trump was willing to do, and proves that while Trump was a relative amateur at manipulating facts for political advantage—his “facts” were clearly mostly lies—DeSantis is a professional at this sort of thing, and thus a much more dangerous creature.

In this country, fascist buffoons are a dime-a-dozen, all of them claiming to be the most “loyal” of Trump disciples. Few of them actually possess any natural “charisma” of their own, they just try to “prove” that their loyalty to the cult of Trump is just a little stronger than that of other cult members. DeSantis may be forced to prove his fealty to Trump when those criminal indictments come out of New York and Trump will likely have to be extradited from Florida. Will DeSantis refuse to honor an extradition order and harbor a wanted fugitive from the law?

This isn’t any way to run a country as large and diverse as the U.S., so why not learn a thing or two from the “mother country”—not Nazi Germany as Trump prefers, but the United Kingdom. After all, don’t they have more “experience” running not just their own country, but at one time practically half the world?

Unfortunately, what’s going on in the UK these days doesn’t exactly give one hope that either its government or its electorate can set a good example. Early on during the pandemic, it was hard to determine who was following who in their politicized and unprepared response—Trump or Boris Johnson, he of the unashamedly messy hair and tendency to treat serious issues with a lack of seriousness. The Conservative government was so entangled in the Brexit mess and anti-immigrant measures in 2019 that it ignored serious deficiencies with its healthcare and social welfare system, and was totally unprepared for what was to come. Johnson, apparently taking his cue from Trump, downplayed the pandemic and ignored WHO regulations, and when the pandemic struck in full force, the UK was in no position to tackle the problem without strong and determined leadership, which Johnson failed to provide. Today, the UK leads all Europe—including Russia—for the most COVID-19 deaths.

Faced with his massive mishandling of the pandemic, Johnson did what someone with autocratic tendencies does when he screws-up: finds scapegoats and abuses his authority so that his actions will not be questioned. He attempted to suspend parliament, and failing that, bypassed usual parliamentary procedure by issuing decrees and forcing through laws without proper vetting of their effects. Why he thought he could do this has something to do with a strange anomaly in the UK’s constitutional system: it has no actual “constitution” that most countries would recognize as such, but a mishmash of rules and procedures than can be changed or ignored on whim. Predictably, Johnson and his allies have spent much time making vicious attacks on the judiciary and the media questioning his actions, who insist on transparency and intentions.

And that isn’t all, far from it. In his Queens speech the other day, which is something like a “state of the union” address, Johnson decried crime, but as pointed out to him, his failure to prop-up the social welfare system during the pandemic was much to blame for it. Johnson was also accused of providing empty talking points about job creation after the double hit of the pandemic and Brexit, offering Trumpian superlatives in describing his Biden-lite infrastructure “plan.”

Johnson used the Brexit impasse to portray himself as a populist and “champion” of the people, while parliamentary authority to approve his actions was seen as being the “enemy” of the popular will, even though many, if not most, people in country had no clue what cutting off completely from the EU meant. Most economists believe that Brexit will have long-term adverse effects to the British economy, but nationalist fervor is stronger than common sense, as it is here in the U.S.

The Conservative Party in the UK is, however, much less radicalized than the Republican Party. It supports maintaining programs (such as the National Health Service) that the right in this country would consider “socialist.” It has survived in one name or another relatively unchanged for several centuries, generally taking power when the majority of the electorate feels under threat from forces it can’t control, and feel that a “strong hand” is necessary. The Conservative Party simply exists for such times, because unlike the Liberal Party, it has no real ideology or plan for governing: it simply blows with the current public whim. Brexit is a perfect example of this. Conservative prime minister David Cameron supported remaining in the EU, but after the Brexit vote, he resigned and his successors, Theresa May and Johnson, have supported it—not out of any actual belief that it was “good” for the country, but because it would be “unpopular” with the masses if they didn’t support it. That is certainly not the way the Republican Party operates; it couldn’t care less what the majority wants—they only hear the nutjob minority that shouts the loudest—ironically, Republicans no longer listen to the “silent majority.”

That is not to say that the Conservative Party does not have dangerous, reactionary elements. Racism and anti-immigrant sentiment was predictably the “guiding principle” behind Brexit, and white nationalism/grievance was predictably a part of the “traditionalism” of the Conservative Party. In 1968, in response to the Race Relations Act which made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race or national origin, conservative PM Enoch Powell gave his “Rivers of Blood” speech,” in which he proclaimed

For these dangerous and divisive elements the legislation proposed in the Race Relations Bill is the very pabulum they need to flourish. Here is the means of showing that the immigrant communities can organize to consolidate their members, to agitate and campaign against their fellow citizens, and to overawe and dominate the rest with the legal weapons which the ignorant and the ill-informed have provided. As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood.”  That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch in horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect.

It is incredibly ironic that such voices do not recognize in themselves the element that is most “dangerous and divisive.” The Conservative Party has a history of promoting anti-immigrant policies, such as the “hostile environment” policy and the so-called “merit-based” immigration proposal.  The Windrush scandal was a culmination of racial fearmongering that led to the illegal attempt to deport thousands of British citizens simply because of the color of their skin, and no effort was made to determine their legal status. Johnson’s own racist comments in the past have been taken as “jokey” and “Johnson being Johnson,” but they also reveal a man totally lacking in sensitivity or even awareness of the import of his words. His Home Secretary, an Indian named Priti Patel, has been accused of promoting a “point system” for determining “merit” which uses algorithms that are deliberated skewed to benefit those like her, and discriminate against other groups.

The Conservative government has also passed a “freedom of speech” law that punishes universities for taking any action against students or teachers who are feel their “freedom of speech” rights have been violated, and allows them to seek compensation for these “violations.” Of course, what is really happening here is the further eroding of the UK’s toothless hate speech law. In fact this is just another “solution” in search of a “problem,” since there are almost no incidents in which a speaker was not permitted to speak. The real “problem” here is that this “freedom of speech” law now emboldens hateful and racist speech.

In this and other ways, Johnson and the Conservative Party have been taking a few pages out of the Republican Party playbook. Johnson has come under attack for his own voter suppression tactics. He is proposing a new voter ID law, which a few members of his own party admit is yet another “solution” in search of a “problem.” One-in-five British citizens of voting age currently have no form of picture ID, especially in poor and racially-diverse communities, and the bill makes little effort to “remedy” or provide provision to obtain a qualifying ID.

Thus the UK “example” doesn’t really work for this country. Boris Johnson may in some ways be more “likeable” and seem more “reasonable” than someone like Trump and his surrogates, but the truth is that Johnson and his party isn’t exactly “leading” by “example”—it is in many ways just following Trumpism.