DON JONES INDEX… |
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DOW JONES INDEX: 12/23/20…30,051.15;
12/16/20…30,199.31; 6/27/13…15,000.00) LESSON for December 23, 2020 – “A YEAR to DISMEMBER” (Jan – Jun, 2020) Well, at least Texas
Attorney General Ken Paxton’s SCOTUS ploy and “melting’ Rudy G’s brown
blizzard of lawsuits have failed and now we have two vaccines (for those
entitled to get them) so, if 2020 is going out worse than it came in, things
are at least a little better than they were in October and November. Now, Don Jones has a choice – cancel
Christmas or celebrate, and risk death. The CDC and
state governments are drawing up lists of the nice and – well, not naughty,
just more expendable than others. For
the most part, these vaccination priorities are reasonable: healthcare
workers, the elderly in nursing homes first in line, first responders second
(to avoid that contradiction, the authorities have invented a Tier One-A to
include police and firefighters and… grocery clerks?…
(need that TP!).
As expected, of course, crates of Pfizer and Moderna
vaxxes are falling off the back of trucks and
planes (gently, they’re glass and highly susceptible to temperature
contamination) – the going rate for wealthy line jumpers is said to be
$25,000. And politicians are queuing
up to get shot… President-Elect Biden and Vice Harris (certainly
justifiable); Mitch, Chuck and Nancy (so they won’t collapse before passing
Stim Two) but AOC, really? “From each according to his capacity, to each according to their
celebrity?” Ever selfless
(or foolish), President Trump has refused the cure to date, whether because
the doctors have assured him that his prior contagion renders him immune
forever or… soon to be unemployed and homeless himself… he’s considering a
nobler posture of suicide.
Unfortunately, his last days are going to be chaotic, dangerous and
potentially suicidal for the world… given that his master, Mad Vlad Putin, is
engaging in a final power play which seems to be to disable our nuclear
retaliatory capacity and bomb the nation (and its plague) into
extermination. BilBarr
the Barbarian has deemed his Puppet King intolerably mad and will be quitting
tomorrow… his replacement, appointed as another of those Actors or not…
appears to be tinfoil-hat lawyer Sidney Powell, whose agenda will be to
confiscate voting machines, declare martial law and send Federal troops into
the red and blue zones alike to wage war with State sanctioned National
Guardsmen and… oh yea… to investigate Hunter Biden for irregularities in
Ukraine, just as other prosecutors are investigating Rudy G. for… yup…
irregularities in Ukraine. Merry
Christmas! (And if you’re not a Vax
Mike Pence-approved believer, just go to Hell!) So, before we
recapitulate the doings of a year that went off the rails around the
beginning of March… despite doctors as warned Our President about the China
Virus back in dim, old 2019… let’s at least admit to the possibilities of a
few positives as wandered our way in 2020… The price of gas
went down (because so many were too sick or dead to drive anywhere)… Unemployment is
slowly creeping downwards (because jobs are opening for reasons of above)… A woman was shot
off into space and walked outside the International Space Station… Saturn and
Jupiter conjoined to create a Star of Bethlehem (we’ll see if history repeats
in 2050 or so)… The Jets won a
football game… A lot of the big box stores as suffered loss
of business due to the plague will be holding post-holiday sales. A lot of big-budget movies will be fire-saled to streamers, if they can afford the fees. President Trump is, at this very moment,
pondering whether to sign Stim Two, or go out of office in full Grinch mode. There’s
more… but Don Jones gets the picture.
Things have to get better
because we won’t have Djonald Unedited to entertain
us now. Millions of cases and hundreds
of thousand dead… hospitals full and some rationing
care, millions more Americans “food insecure (i.e. hungry) and a new
variation of Britplague is said to be 70% more
infectious. More lethal or
vaccine-resistant? Maybe, maybe not. Lets go back and see
how it all began… Here’s how 2020
began (January through June)… 2020 in review LESSON for January 1, 2020 – SING IN the NEW! (DJI: 16,571.32) We revisit 2019, with special emphasis
on a few of its key developments. “(O)ur abject flight from the
Syrian conflict and betrayal of the Kurds came home to roost, sort of, when
an emboldened Iran sent its militias in Iraq to invade and torch the American
embassy… repeating the Benghazi, Libya fiasco all over…” is the lost story of
the week (and the year); we note the gathering clouds of impeachment and the
Democratic primary in South Carolina which sliced the field down to four…
Bernie, Warren, Bloomberg and Uncle Joe.
LESSON for January 8, 2020 – TIT-TAT-TOE! (DJI: 16,578.40) Djonald Untrammeled puts out a
hit on Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani – qzar of the Quds Brigade and a known terrorist. The President tweets and tweets again on
the Persian perfidy… ICE agents detain disembarking Iranian air
passengers. International worriers
worry about retaliation. LESSON
for January 15, 2020 – BACK to the BASE! (DJI: 16,567.85) From our Lesson: “President Trump has proven to be the luckiest man
on the planet (ask again in two months!).
The economy is still humming along, the NFL playoffs are in full swing
as are, for the unsportsmanlike, the Oscars… New York City is roasting and
toasting at an un-Januaryish
seventy-five degrees and there’s even a little bit of rain in
Australia.” On the other hand, the
National Debt keeps creeping upwards (23 trillion and rising) but nobody
seems to care. “The stock market is
still humming along, crossing over into 29,000 territory a couple of times
before falling back… wages of working people were down, but the billionaires
are doing just fine.” Debt also caused
the Don to re-evaluate its Index… probably downward, as will be revealed in
February LESSON
for January 22, 2020 – THE DIRTY DOZEN!
(DJI: 16,567.60) Impeachment hearings open and the debates drag
on. Intersectionalists”
Warren and the Bern are feuding with one another while Biden sits back and
smiles and Bloomberg writes checks for advertising that disappears down into
the rabbit hole. “Here’s the problem
in Iowa right now: any of the top four could finish in any of the top four,”
Steve Elmendorf, a veteran Democratic strategist tells the ultra-liberal
Guardian UK. “And there’s a big difference between first and fourth. So if
you’re Joe Biden, do you want to go after Bernie, do you want to go after
Elizabeth? I mean there’s a lot of permutations here – a lot of strategic
decisions you’ve got to make. LESSON for January 29, 2020 – DEATH VALLEY
DAYS! (DJI: 16,543.25) Sickness and scandal bursts out all over
(and the Coronavirus is still a Chinese curiosity amongst people who eat
bats. The Grammies are corrupt, Harvey
Weinstein is on trial and HR 755… two articles of impeachment against Donald
Trump… have been filed. Thursday’s session centers upon Article One... a Ukrainian fiasco
otherwise known as “the deed”, the governing reason for impeachment. On Friday, the prosecutors tackle Article
Two... otherwise known as “the coverup”. The Senate, on a party line vote, rules
against calling witnesses, despite polls on the calling of witnesses showing
a 72-28% margin in favor. LESSON for February 5, 2020 – D-DAYZ! (DJI: 14,972.65) President Trump’s State of the Union message is
full-on Reagan… a booming economy… jobs up, the stock
market up, treaties signed, evil persons obliterated. Impeacher-ers
cite Bill Clinton, Richar Nixon and Andrew Johnson
but to no avail. No witnesses will be
called. And Kansas City wins the Superbowl. LESSON for February 12, 2020 – TIE ME KANGAROO
DOWN, COURT! (DJI: 14,881.57) With Court Chief Justice and impeachment High
Inquisitor John Roberts, declaring “… and he (Trump) is hereby, acquitted of
the charges in said articles,” Impeachment officially crashes and burns. As recorded, appropriately, on the Voice of
America News, David Byrd next declared to the world: “The Senate has voted to
acquit President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial. On both articles of
impeachment, the vote tallies were nowhere near the Constitution’s mandate of
two-thirds senators needed to convict.” Liberals are predictably outaged
and offended. “America is a monarchy
now,” the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch laments. Others cringe over a plethora of alt-right
fantasies to come true: repeal of Roe v. Wade, a replacement of progressive
taxation by a single tax bracket (or even a Thatcherian
poll tax), re-criminalization of sodomy, repeal of the Civil Rights Act of
1965 and, who knows, a return to slavery?
Siba, the black French poodle
becomes top dog at the Westminster Kennel competition. LESSON for February 19 – WRONG! (DJI: 14,883.13) An annoyance bubbles up from China… some disease
over there is making the Chinese not want to go to work, this impacting
production of cellphones and high tech devices. Borders are closed to sick Chinese, and
then to all Chinese. Sex scandal suits
drive the Boy Scouts into bankruptcy as Democrats prepare for their decisive
(and divisive) Super Tuesday. LESSON for February 26 – LAST CALL! (DJI: 14,851.04) Chaotic donkey debate features three old men
(Biden, the Bern and Bloomberg… who stakes his turf by denouncing “horse
faced lesbians” and spending half a billion on ads. Pete the Butt denies calling Amy the Klob “dumb”.
Meanwhile Trump is out on the road holding Nuremberg-type rallies
while the plague gains strength across Europe and Asia (the CDC fears it
might be “bad”) and the stock market collapses. MAGA man Roger Stone get three years in the
lockup and starts petitioning his good friend for a pardon. LESSON for March 4 – TWILIGHT of the
ALSO-RANS! (DJI: 14,827.43) It’s the Year of the Rat and Trump is riding
high. The economy is booming,
terrorists are sulking in their caves and enjoying sex with goats. And then that pesky plague takes over… an
American dies, and then a second. The
Dow was not amused. From a closing
high of 29,551.42 on Lincoln’s Birthday, it tumbled; slowly at first, then
eight – nine – ten
percent every day until, late Friday afternoon, it hit a low of
24,681.01 before some clever operators (in their own minds, at least) decided
to slurp up some profits and goosed it back up to 25,409.36 in the hope that
the CV was just a passing fad like all those others. Now celebrities are starting to “get
it”. The Dow was not amused. From a closing high of 29,551.42 on
Lincoln’s Birthday, it tumbled; slowly at first, then eight – nine – ten percent every
day until, late Friday afternoon, it hit a low of 24,681.01 before some
clever operators (in their own minds, at least) decided to slurp up some
profits and goosed it back up to 25,409.36 in the hope that the CV was just a
passing fad like all those others Beto (an English condensation of Roberto) promises to
confiscate Americans guns, delighting Republican strategists.. LESSON for March 11, 2020 – CRAZY SICK
ASIANS! (DJI: 14,816.97) Plague in perspective… consider the Spanish Flu,
striking at the close of World War One, but this was a relatively minor
plague compared to the Black Death of the 14th century, the 6th
century Plague of Justinian (which terminated the Roman Empire) or the
smallpox which so devastated the New World that a small number of Europeans
were able to conquer two continents. As the plague comes to America, 18th
floor sale beginning. Hoarders hoard
Purell and toilet paper. Just wait
until April! LESSON for March 18 and 25, 2020 – CANCELLED! LESSON for April 1, 2020 – THE GHOST GOES
SOUTH! (DJI: 14,783.79) Optimists cheer pandemic plunge in China. President Trump takes to calling CV “the
invisible enemy” – one of many triteosities to
come. He predicts the virus will be
conquered by May Day. Plague gastronomologists argue over whether the plague was
caused by Chinese eating bats or pangolins (a rare anteater-like varmint). “The Global Health Security Index names
the United States as the country with the strongest measures in place and it
came first with 83.5 out of 100,” declared Statista, proffering data that
showed the USA winning by a large margin over the rest of Those
Foreigners. “The United Kingdom came
second with 77.9 followed by the Netherlands with 75.6. China, which has
initiated a series of lockdowns in response to the outbreak, comes 51st with
a score of 48.2.” The world’s
third-worst-case germpit was North Korea, leading
only Somalia and the black ribbon winner, Equatorial Guinea. LESSON for April 8, 2020 – A JOURNAL of the PLAGUE
YEAR (Part I, March 2020) (DJI: 14,489.29) This index begins a new feature – weekly recaps of
the major events of the week (which, over the intervening months, tend to
focus on politics and plague. Our
sources are Albert Camus’ aptly named “Le Peste”
and the above title, written by Daniel DeFoe
regarding the 1666-68 London distemper (both of which were bubonic, not
viral). Both contain rats.
Lots of rats. Celebrities get it… UK PM Boris Johnson Pro-Trump anti-mask backlash begins. Domstic
terrorists targeting liberals and medical researchers… Dr. Fauci frequently marked for death. Police report drop in ordinary crime due to
social isolation of the perps. LESSON for April 15, 2020 – A JOURNAL of the
PLAGUE YEAR (Part II, April 2020) (DJI: 14,225.39) Entrepreneurs looking for ways to cash in on the
plague as unemployment claim overload: five million in a
week, 17M total and rising, home schooling stalling because 17% of kids
nationwide, far more in poor neighborhoods, have no computers and/or Internet
service. g,
strikes. Democrats move back
primaries, ponder a virtual convention (to nominate a virtual President?). Tornadoes sweep through Deep South, kill
33. We have an economy that crashed on
the viable prospect of a million or two American deaths (not realized),
massive unemployment (realized) and oodles of preventable error. We have anger, despair and confusion. Will the disease return every winter,
forcing Americans into masks and gloves and social distancing until 2022… or
2032… or forever? Will a “silver bullet”
be developed to terminate the pandemic (or, at least, a “golden passport” that
will grant immunity to a favored few)?
And what will be the price we have to pay to prevent having to go...
as Bob Dylan asked in “Memphis Blues Again”, for those who recover this time
“…through this thing twice.” LESSON
for April 22, 2020 - PARANOIA STRIKES DEEP (DJI: 14,111.94) In
the interests of maintaining the American economy on life support, at the
minimum, and preventing millions of the suddenly unemployed from hunger and
homelessness, the bipartisan House and Senate passed a home relief act (gussied
up as “The Stimulus”). The DebtClock
estimation of Americans seeking or not seeking work has completely collapsed
and statistics are spinning downwards with no brakes. There is further evidence that the
government is just breaking down… and it’s not just that the President has to
walk back a suggestion, presumably sarcastic, that Americans inject
themselves with Lysol to kill the little bugs drifting through their
bloodstreams because some components of his base are just that stupid…
research, recording and disseminating agencies are starting to fail like
calcified lungs. LESSON
for May 1, 2020 – STIM-U-LOSE (w/“A Journal of the Plague Year” (Part
III) (DJI: 14,036.20) All
across America, one can hear the sounds of a mighty nations slowly rising
from their deep, Fentanyl sleep.
Capitulating to the mob, Congress shells out bread (if not circuses)
and Governors are unlocking lockdowns to save jobs and businesses. Said Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic
Security (CARES) stimulus payments to suffering
Joneses are immediately confiscated by debt collectors, banks and landlords
or creditors in bankruptcy, “so there’s good reason to worry,” worries NOLO,
a legal clearinghouse. Trump
walks back his advice to inject Lysol, drink bleach and exposing themselves
to nuclear radiation, claiming that he was “joking”. What a comedian! Scientists continued researching vaccines
(the good), talking shit on television (the bad) or kowtowing to Djonald Unhinged’s fantasies;
healthcare workers do their jobs but complain about lack of Personal
Protective Equipment (PPE). Says
DJI: “If there is hope to be found in the apparent leveling off of cases
after only three months… roughly a third of the extent of the heyday of
Camus’ plague… there may also be apprehensions that its decline might not be
so precipitous (unless, indeed, the summer heat proves a virus killer). If it is justified, Don Jones might well
enjoy a “new normalcy” by Memorial Day, at best, or… more likely…
Independence Day. If not… if the dire
predictions of pessimists of a pandemic surviving the summer heat, mutating
in 2020-21 or retreating until people throw aside their cautions and mingle
promiscuously once again are justified… well, as the President is wont to
say, ‘We shall see what happens.’” Friday, May 1, 2020…
Infected: 1,070,620; Dead: 63,000;
Dow: 23,761.16 LESSON for May 8, 2020 – WHO
C.A.R.E.S.? (NOT W.H.O.)! (DJI: 13,943.63)
Some states pass protective laws,
vaguely enforced. Ohio Attorney
General David Yost warns creditors that those one-time government
checks are protected by state law from garnishment. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signs an executive
order barring debt collectors and creditors from seizing stimulus checks
stating that: “Many Oregonians, through no fault of their own, are struggling
to pay their bills, their rent, or even buy essentials like groceries and
prescription drugs… “(t)hese
recovery checks were meant to provide relief, not reward debt collection
agencies for preying on Oregonians who have lost their livelihoods due to the
COVID-19 pandemic.” These announcements were prompted by the
CARES Act, the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus legislation passed by
Congress, because it does not prevent private debt collectors from seizing
the money for unpaid debts. The most outrageous
garnishments are those committed by private online “universities”, many of
which have been fingered as out-and-out scams. The Student Borrower Protection Center and Americans for Financial
Reform sends a letter to the 12 biggest private student lenders
urging them to let borrowers cease payments without fees or penaltiesl; TIME reaches out to 11 of the 12 lenders –
ten of whom give the magazine, and the debtors a middle finger. “The
stimulus checks were intended to be used during an emergency – to put food on
the table, keep the lights on and a roof over our heads,” Ohio Attorney
General’s adds, not to “pay off an old bill.” LESSON for May 15, 2020 – NO PLACE to SHELTER
IN! (DJI: 13,707.18)
As to shelter,
the federal government has suspended evictions and foreclosures in public
housing until the end of April. The government-backed mortgage buyers Freddie
Mac and Fannie Mae, have agreed to do the same for at least 60 days.” NOLO (5/8) has compiled a state-by-state
roster of what tenants can and cannot do, and what can be done to them. The chart includes links to state and local
information offices. See full issue here as Attachment Four. The
housing of last resort? Across the
country, cities are criminalizing
homelessness, making it illegal for people to sit, sleep, and even eat in
public places—despite the absence of housing or even shelter, and
other basic resources. These laws violate
constitutional rights, create
arrest records and fines
& fees that stand in the way of homeless people getting
jobs or housing, and cost more money than simply solving the problem by
ensuring access to adequate housing according to the Homeless Not Handcuffs
campaign, a project of assorted social service agencies including the National
Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and the National Coalition for the Homeless. But Governor Greg Abbott (R-Tx) issued orders to suspend “a large swath of law on
bail practices” and prohibit judges from releasing jail inmates accused or previously convicted of violent
crimes without paying bail — he defends his dragnet of pot smokers,
jaywalkers and shoplifters (nnd the homeless) who
may have been convicted of a violent crime twenty or fifty years ago, arguing
that “releasing dangerous criminals in the streets is not the solution"
to the coronavirus spreading in lockups… Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (soon
to become famous for another reason) claims the decision "rightfully
protects the health and safety of Texans from the unlawful release of
potentially thousands of dangerous individuals into our communities." LESSON for May 23, 2020 – ANTI-SOCIAL CREDIT! (DJI: 13,642.69) “2021
has emerged into a cold, sickly dawn, but it’s still the Year of the Rat in
Wuhan, and it’s time to tally up the damage.
Once the holidays are over, armed, uniformed men come around every few
days, warning you that you’ll have to vacate the premises by the end of
January – the coldest January in a quarter century. The water has followed the power, then the
gas into history (but there is, fortunately, plenty of snow)… you’ve tried
selling the TV, the computer, and the microwave but the pawnshops aren’t
making loans on electronics with so many off the grid and they only offer
fifteen bucks for your eight-hundred-dollar generator (gas being no longer
cheap now that the Russians and Saudis have kissed and made up) “You
still have a radio, and the people advertising there say millions just like
you are relieving their stress and their debts by consolidating all of their
overdue bills into one lump sum, onto which borrowers can make one EZ payment
per month (taxes and service fees not included). Well, Don Jones gotta
do what Don Jones has gotta do, so you sign on the
dotted line, and the friendly loan officer takes out his pocket calculator to
tote up the monthly tab, frowns and shakes his head… “You
see, your credit is in the toilet – and not a scrap of Charmin’ to be had.” As to the aftermath of plague credit… Rod Griffin, senior director of
public education and advocacy at Experian, said it could still be helpful to
get a payment accommodation for a late payment which,
although it wouldn’t fix your credit, wouldn’t let it get worse during the
relief period. Equifax suggested that
borrowers may want to add a brief “consumer statement” to their credit report
to explain the impact of the pandemic. It suggested this language: “Be advised
that the negative accounts on my credit report are related to the
coronavirus. I intend to make these up as soon as I can.” “They have to
call before they’re late,” said Chi
Chi Wu, a staff attorney at the National Consumer
Law Ce.,
but added that getting through to lenders may be a challenge. “Millions of people are making those same
phone calls, so waits are long and
people have reported being automatically disconnected. “ LESSON for June 1, 2020 – TOXIC MASK-U-LINITY (DJI: 13,514.92)
“That masks would be a
major point of contention has come as a surprise. That they would occasion a
new discussion of masculinity is a stranger plot twist still,” Bonnie Kristian
stated in The Week (May 14th).. And, as
with his bristling twitterings over masks, sex and
manliness, the President has drawn his line in the sand (perhaps a dead-line
inasmuch as only the male MAGA-faithful and a few Janes still seeking Tarzan
can be counted on his side as opposed to the women, the Democrats, the
girly-men, the racial minorities, those doctors and scientists and a bunch of
people with no particular agenda other than to not get sick). Buried
deep beneath the rhetoric lies a real issue – many (MAGAmen)
have either lost their jobs, have had their hours cut, or are facing
impending evils that a lack of cash money engenders… foreclosures, evictions,
utility shutoffs, hunger, the usual suspects… they want jobs, not handouts,
they accept the stimulus payments and free food with bitterness; media
psychologists have asserted time and again that many blame themselves,
despite anything they could do to the contrary. That is
why their “toxic masculinity”… encompassing the good, old-fashioned American
values like self-reliance, freedom and free enterprise, a suspicion of
government (and, of late, the media) celebrates real men who don’t beg or
whine. And wearing masks (or vaxxing) because the government tells them to is not only cowardly, it’s weird. Research shows that during both the SARS and H1N1
outbreaks, women were more likely to wear face masks than men. Make
no mistake, asserts Jessica Valenti of gen/media:
“This is macho bullshit at its most lethal.” Donald David Abrams, a
psychologist and (probably queer) professor of social and behavioral science
at New York University, told CNN that
for some people, “Putting on that mask is about as blatant as saying, ‘Hey,
I’m a scaredy cat.’” The best men I
know are not hemmed within these masculine lines, stated Kristian, “they model
traditionally "feminine
virtues," too, like compassion, endurance, and gentleness. Monday,
June 1, 2020… Infected: 1,721,753;
Dead: 100,442; Dow: 25,673.99 LESSON for June 9, 2020 – INSURRECTION
ERECTION (DJI: 13,590.82) As the
Chinese are wont to say… not “splice the bat genes into the duck genes, Wan,
and lets test the results on stupid Americans”, but rather… “may you get that for which you wish.” This is a benevolence on par with another
standard: “may you live in interesting times” which, of course, means exactly
the opposite of its stated intent. Finally,
something came along to knock the politicians and the plague clear out of
your TV sets and social media, upend the Twitterverse,
erase it from the front pages of newspapers and
magazines. Unfortunately, that
something was the brazen murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man accused
of trying to buy cigarettes with a funky Jackson who was duly strangled by
four policemen for nine minutes, whereupon he died and duly ascended into
that media martyr’s heaven among Rodney King and Emmett Till and Martin
Luther King (among many, many others). So
Minneapolis burned, and then New York, Los Angeles, Louisville, Denver,
Seattle and dozens of other cities – even Bakersfield, fer
chrissake!
And as pressure to “Do Something” from his white and, mostly,
law-abiding base (except for those Nazis) settled about the head and
shoulders of President Trump, he didn’t exactly do anything, but did venture
the next best outcome… he made promises.
Promises to meet the mostly young, mostly (but not exclusively) black
and mostly (but not exclusively) poor with not only tear gas and billy clubs and rubber bullets, but real bullets; with
“vicious dogs and ominous weapons”, with the Army and the Marines (not those
effete, state-run National Guardsmen), with Space Force starships spraying
crowds with death rays. Some
obstreperous little bureaucrat, however, inveigled Congress to pass, in 1878,
the Posse Comitatus Act, to benefit of a strange coalition of die-hard
Confederates seeking to limit Federal interference in state matters and union
lefties angered at President Hayes’ use of Federal troops to end the Great
Railroad Strike of 1877. Fortunately,
there is a wormhole through which a manly man can slither round the evil,
mutant PC and set America’s military to war against its citizens… the
Insurrection Act of 1807… in support of which Trump launched a trial balloon
upon the occasion of his wishing to visit St. John’s Church and wave his
Bible. The spectacle of troops
forcefully clearing peaceful protestors "seemed to confirm that the
President and senior Pentagon leadership are willing to use the military to
further their political objectives," Rep. Elissa Slotkin
(D-Mi) wrote. “The fact is
that he should stay out of our business,” J. B. Pritzker (D-Il), one of
several Governors, told
CNN. “We are working hard in the state of Illinois to bring down tensions.” LESSON for June 17, 2020 – BAD COP, NO DONUT! (DJI: 13,604.87) Some Don
Juniors (Joneses, for the most part, but also a Trump here and there) grow up
believing policemen were their friends… told that the thin blue line is all
which protects them from persons of dark skin, darker hearts and the darkest
desires; policemen visit their elementary schools, maybe bringing along a
pot-sniffing K-9 to be petted and fed.
The lucky few will even be able to sit in a patrol car and maybe, just
maybe, play with the lights and siren. Other
Americans… the Other Americans of Otherness lore… grow into their teen years
believing that cops are their natural predators, the way that wolves kill
rabbits or birds eat bugs. After
George Floyd, etc. a Rhode Island deli declared it would stop giving free
donuts to cops. When
Floyd was lain beneath the dirt, next to his mother whom he called out for in
his dying gasps on Tuesday morning… attended by the ubiquitous Al Sharpton
and a ghost on video most believed to be Joe Biden… the week of unmasked
rioting and marching was supposed to go away. But there was a difference between 2020 and
prior fishy police assaults and murders… the Rodney Kings, the Trayvon
Martins, the marchers in Selma or, going back 99 years, the Ku Klux Klan’s
final major “military” success, the extermination of the relatively small
black population of Tulsa, Oklahoma by lead and fire… was: first – that
racial politics in America had already been put in the pot and set to boil
(largely by the President of the United States himself) and second – that a
nation cooped up in the prison of
masks and gloves, of quarantine in place and social distancing was
ready to burst out into the streets and explode. Seattle’s
Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ, for short) seceded from America, and a
strongman (dubbed a “warlord”) one Raz Simone, aja just plain Raz, seized the
reins of power. Raz
was everywhere and nowhere, baby; giving interviews, single-handedly taking
down even more anarchical anarchists lusting to light more fires and also, if
the conservative media is to be believed, stitching together a multifaceted,
grassroots criminal conspiracy extorting small, mostly minority, businesses
and the elderly residents who found themselves stuck behind the barricades
for “war taxes” on the model of the drug gangs of Sao Paolo, the Godly denizens
of ISIS in occupied Syria or… again going back a century or so… the “Black
Hand” mafiosi as played and preyed on the
inhabitants of immigrant Italian neighborhoods back in the day. By
Monday, CHAZ was Raz and Raz
was CHAZ. And all that jazz – dating
back to the founding of People’s Park, Burning Man’s TAZ, Chicago, 1968, the
Paris Commune and even the revolt of Spartacus against the Romans. All eventually failed (Burning Man’s
$900-2400 ticket price being failure, of a sort) while President Trump’s
friends in the black community (Kanye, Dr. Carson, some guy named Tyrone in
Pennsylvania?)… nineteen thousand unmasked and overwhelmingly white MAGAmen will convene in a Tulsa plague locker to shout
and scream and spray their adoration of their President. It’s a
wonder anybody will be left alive
and uninfected by November. LESSON for June 24, 2020 – MISTER TRUMP’S WILD
RIDE (and melancholy walk back)! (DJI:
13,573.23) We’re still more than
four months away from decision day, 2020 but now, at least, the dueling
campaigns can have, at least, a theme and a theme song on which to hang the
aspirations and the nooses as will adjudicate one or the other President for
the next four years. Sleepy Joe is lumbering towards the Democratic
nomination; the motley krewe of misfits, Socialists
and channellists are fading fast and its just about
time for the schools to release their captives. Despite
the plague, the hoary tradition of celebrities and politicians whoring
themselves for a few bucks persists… to wit, the Commencement Speeches
(ushering those whose lives are not terminated by an unwise pool party to
commence the task of finding work at 13% unemployment. Some
of the notable discourses… Hillary Clinton recommending: “Believe in science, including vaccinations. Wash
your hands. And if all else fails, try meditation or
alternate nostril breathing.” “You are the seeds that will grow
into a new and different forest that is far more beautiful and loving than
the one we live in today,” said Lady Gaga. “Think about the hospital orderly,
scrubbing down the ward on hands and knees,” scolded Apple CEO Tim Cook,
“whose work today is as solitary and sacred as a high priest purifying a temple.” “Legally
Blonde” actress Jennifer Coolidge averred that life is a storm.” Stormy Daniels was not invited to commence
any students. But Barack Obama showed
up four times (Michelle once, also). Ivanka Trump was invited to Wichita State, then dis-invited
following massive protests. LESSON for July 1, 2020 – ALL THIS, and WORLD WAR,
TOO! (DJI: 13,570.83) Have to
admit – the President is still on a roll, a downhill roll like a fat man
bundled up as a snowball rolling down a hill on a winter’s day five, six
months back, that most of us can only dream of (or forward, as finds us still
under the weather). So maybe
his toadying up to Vladimir Putin is a good thing – or so we thought at the
time. We
got/had the plague, the unemployment, a new-old cop on black teen
strangulation murder as has kept the race riots percolating, we’ve got
Prospero’s happy horde fending off the Red Death and ancient enemies at the
gates (and, apparently, in the White House) and the prospect of
re-recession. That’s just the old, old stuff… topping it off (the new old stuff), we’ve got many, many
more months of pandemic pandemonium, lists of the dead and dying crawling
down from the seniors to teenagers and children and even… in a wink n’ nod to
the Greatest Generation, a revival of Nazis, as during World War II, and
perfidious Russians, as in the Cold War. Check on all
accounts! - DJI Hate
was/is bustin’ out all over, and… unlike the docile, dispirited
citizens of Oran in Camus’ opus… Americans were lifting their spoons to dig
in. Excusable
in the hotheadeD days of midsummer, less so
now. At least we’ve got the vaccines…
maybe… as could be ubiquitous by July 1, 2021. We had: stock markets and employment crashing,
killer cops and rampaging rioters, bars and nightclubs closing, masks
politicized and Don Jones ran out of toilet paper. It being our seventh anniversary, we ran
the July 1st Indices for comparisons… not encouraging. About the only bright spot was the drop in
gas prices… as if we had anywhere to go. “Our
estimation (and America’s) of a plague lasting maybe five or six months,
allowing for a monthly correspondence with the five chapters of Camus has
clearly gone off the rails – it now seems fortunate if the end of the
coronavirus comes, as in the novel, within ten months to a year.” That
would be in January if the former “impossible”,
March if the latter “unlikely”. Maybe by the Fourth
of July, 2021? Wednesday,
July 1, 2020… Infected: 2,658,325;
Dead: 127,000 m/l; Dow: 25,827.36 We are reaching the end of 2020 and the Covid 19 plague has already outlived the bubonic
adventures of both Camus and DeFoe. It would appear that one of the two driving
forces of our daily inserts… the strange journeys and litigations of Donald
Trump, now an ascertained Ex-President, are nearing their end while the
other… the plague itself… is not. So
the installments for this week and next week will be the final appearances of
this structure and, in the spirit of the season, we’ll conclude with happy
excerpts. The italicized remarks, from
DeFoe this week, come as the 1665=6 London plague
was dying out, with recrudescence to be halted by fire. Next week, the conclusion of Camus’ “Le Peste”. In fiction, both plagues had their
beginning, their midpoints and their ends (both with the advent of cold
weather as kills fleas as carry the bubonic plague and drives their carriers…
the rats… into hiding). And, if one
puts faith in Mr. DeFoe, the coming of Christmas and
the finger of God played their part.
In life – the first two apply but, as to the third – not necessarily
so.
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