"Damned Jackasses!"
The ghosts of America's past weigh in on the state of the Union...
by Bill Bonner And Joel Bowman
Baltimore, Maryland: "The local Ford dealership turned out to be a good place to find out what the deplorables are thinking. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t even bother to vote yesterday,” said a wiry man with slicked-back wavy hair. He wore a shiny black jacket advertising his participation in the Vietnam War… and sunglasses that might have been used there during the Tet Offensive. “I figure it doan make any difference." “You’re right,” said another, a stout man, nearly bald, with a hunting jacket on. “I’m losing faith in them all. Trump was my man. But he seems more interested in himself than in anything else. He should have stayed out of it.” “You can’t trust none of them. Say one thing. Do another.”
We sat in the waiting room as our truck was being serviced, listening to the conversation around us. Almost all the people in the waiting room were retired factory or construction workers. This was East Baltimore, hon, and all the denizens have pick-ups, notably America’s most popular model – the F150. And with the midterm elections winding up in the usual mix of comedy and disgrace, ‘The People’ try to make sense of it.
Nonsense Politics: Predictably, The New York Times worried about diversity: “How Diverse Are the Candidates in the Midterm Elections?” What the Times is really concerned about is that the voters and the candidates all share the delusions and prejudices of today’s elite – including ‘diversity.’ Yesterday’s elite might have had very different ideas, but who cares about them? They don’t buy newspapers… or vote!
Pennsylvania was the focus of press coverage. The key race featured a tattooed, billy-goateed candidate with recent brain damage… up against a muslim doctor who served in Turkey’s army to maintain his Turkish citizenship and later went on to TV stardom in America. A local political operative explained that Pennsylvania was a “diverse and welcoming community.” He meant that the voters did not shy away from choosing misfits and weirdos.
But the voters in Pennsylvania’s 32nd district took diversity to a whole new level. Green Party challenger, Zarah Livingston, must have been the weakest candidate ever to mount a soapbox. She was overwhelmingly trounced by a corpse. Here’s Business Insider: "Pennsylvania state lawmaker won big in the midterm elections despite being dead. Rep. Tony DeLuca, who died at the age of 85 on October 9 from lymphoma, crushed Green Party challenger Zarah Livingston in Tuesday's midterm elections."
Yes, the voters wisely preferred a dead Tony to a live Zarah. And had we been a voter in the district, we would have voted for DeLuca too. Voters there proved they were the most open minded in the nation. They elected a man to represent the most dissed, ignored and despised group in the country – the shades. Their books are banned. Their monuments are torn down. Their heroes are shamed. The corpses must chuckle to themselves: ‘Damned jackasses!’"
Status and Dissatisfaction: But The Old Gray Lady need not fret. The guys in the waiting room explained: “I’m sick of them all. You know what George Wallace said about the Democrats and the Republicans? He said ‘there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them.’ He was right."
“You know what really gets me. I remember back in the old days, I was working down at Sparrows Point [steel mill]. But the politicians would all come and try to get us to vote for them. There were a lot of us there… and over at GM [General Motors also had a nearby assembly plant]. At least they would pretend to care about us. Now, nothing. They get their money from Wall Street. I guess they don’t need us.”
“No, they don’t need us anymore. They certainly don’t.” No, they don’t need the common man. Or dead men. They’ve got each other. Right here. Right now.
CovertAction: Two former CIA officers, Abigail Spanberger and Elissa Slotkin, won reelection on Tuesday night…"Spanberger, a Democrat, defeated her Republican challenger Yesli Vega with 51.9 percent of the vote in Virginia’s 7th district, while Slotkin, also a Democrat, defeated Tom Barrett, a former army pilot, with 50.8 percent of the vote in Michigan’s 7th district."
America’s wealth… and, indirectly, its status as well as the satisfaction of its people…comes from its Main Street economy, which was largely built by people who are now dead. But few of the candidates have had anything to do with real work or the real people who do it – past or present. One might now represent gay men. Another might be a stand-up for Asian-American cripples. One is in the pocket of the trial lawyers. Another was bought by the ‘defense’ industry. But where are the steelworkers? The longshoremen? The auto repairmen? The philosophers, bakers, and Thai masseuses? Where are the captains of industry…and the hewers of wood?
Nope. These candidates were almost all ‘government men’ …and eager to make government even bigger. They don’t represent ‘The People;’ neither those of the past nor of the present. They represent the people who rip ‘The People’ off. "
Joel’s Note: "When Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a member of the crowd gathered there supposedly shouted out to him, “What have we got, doctor… a monarchy or a republic?” To which the Founding Father famously replied, “A republic… if you can keep it.”
That’s the story, anyway… now an indelible part of American folklore. We wonder what Messrs. Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, et al. would have thought after witnessing yesterday’s midterm election circus… As usual, there was plenty of gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands following (and during) the counts… accompanied, of course, with the now-expected charges of fraud, farce and fanaticism emanating from both sides.
The constitutional idea, of course, was to establish a government of laws, not of men. But look around… what do you see? In place of hallowed institutions… spineless candidates. In place of tradition… “progress.” In place of common sense and equality for all... “diversity,” “inclusion” and “equity.” And in place of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness… strife, insecurity and a breathtaking sense of entitlement.
Could it have been otherwise? Might our better angels have protected us from the tyranny of the majority? Might those checks and balances have secured us against the whims and caprices of mere men? The world watches the great American experiment with intense interest… as though we masses huddled on foreign shores were peering into our own future.
But no empire lasts forever… no currency stands eternal… just as no one here gets out alive. Four score and ten years after Mr. Franklin emerged from Independence Hall, dreams of a republic dancing in his head, the writing was already on the wall.
Lysander Spooner, in his classic pamphlet "No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority," sensed already the rot within the system: But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist."
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