Dearest Fellow Malcontents,
You’ve probably noticed that my default word-slinging mode in these communiques is a sort of kicks against the pricks counter-narrative to the news of the day/week/month. Partly “here’s what they’re saying—what a bunch of assholes,” partly “I can’t believe how horrible this shit is, let me bludgeon you with the details,” 100% spleen venting.
I’m don’t know why I’ve felt compelled to recap the news of the week/weak, perhaps just force of habit. I’ve spent the majority of my adult life railing about current events at anyone foolish enough to wander within shouting range. Looking back on those decades of haranguing innocent bystanders, I’m proud to note how productive that approach has been; I mean, who can deny it? It’s certainly filled me with a sense of accomplishment to have forced so many people to ponder my insights before scurrying as quickly as possible in the opposite direction.
But now I hereby acknowledge that my focus on current events is likely to move/fade in and out as we lurch forward through the new year, a result of being overwhelmed by both the whitey noise coming from the halls of congress and state capitols and the ongoing clamoring of the scary-ass devil’s rejects who attacked our base of empire on January 6. “Whitey noise” is a phenomenon also known as Elected Cracker Grievance Screeching (ECGS). We still do not understand all of its deleterious effects but it is definitely not conducive to restful sleep.
True, there are still occasional oddball statements from Republican representatives that don’t reek of entitled white privilege/white victimhood (not to be confused with the Velvet Underground song “White Light/White Heat”), as when West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, argued in early February that fiscal conservatism needed to be jettisoned in order to pass a large COVID-19 relief bill. Justice told reporters, “At this point in time in this nation, we need to go big. We need to quit counting the egg-sucking legs on the cows and count the cows and just move. And move forward and move right now.”
Justice’s oddball turn of phrase is a breath of fresh air compared to most Repug public statements these days, which are almost always case studies of ECGS, though the tried and true “what’s good for big business is good for you, sucker” approach also remains popular throughout the G.O.P.
Mainstream Democrats aren’t exactly free of the taint of corporate largesse (e.g. West Virginia’s own Joe Manchin and his sponsors in Big Coal), but fossil fuel companies were speaking at especially high volumes through their puppets in the Repug Party in recent weeks.
Since the Repug-controlled Texas state government had opted out of being part of the continental U.S. energy grid in order to engage in deregulation and corporate profiteering, most of the Lone Star State was ill-prepared for February’s extreme weather (El Paso never left the continental U.S. grid and got through the storms with relatively minimal damage). Naomi Klein explained in The New York Times, “Texas, of course, still gets the majority of its energy from gas and coal; much of that industry’s poorly insulated infrastructure froze up last week when it collided with wild weather that prompted a huge surge in demand.”
The result: millions in the state were without power, heat, and potable water for days.
Republican Governor Greg Abbott courageously blamed frozen wind turbines (which, when winterized correctly, can operate in the Arctic Circle), proclaiming “This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.”
Rick Perry, former Trump Energy Secretary and one-time Texas governor, weighed in with this: “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business.” Perry also “tweeted” (sorry, I still can’t accept that as a verb) a quote from a hack named Robert Bryce, who wrote, “if we humans want to keep surviving frigid winters, we are going to have to keep burning natural gas — and lots of it — for decades to come.”
Oh, and another entirely predictable aspect of deregulation, blatant price gouging, was also a big factor during the Texas cold snap. As DemocracyNow! reported, “When millions of Texans lost power during extreme winter weather, some who were fortunate enough to keep the lights on now face astronomically high energy bills, with people being charged thousands of dollars for just a few days of energy use.”
During an earnings call on February 17, executive Roland Burns of the natural gas producer Comstock Resources celebrated the winter weather disaster by saying, “This week is like hitting the jackpot, you know, with some of these incredible prices. I mean, you know, frankly, we were able to sell at super premium prices for a material amount of production.” The magic of the marketplace in action!
On Feb. 16, Crooked Media’s news dissector Sarah Lazarus reacted to the mess in Texas by writing, “In the meantime, it’d be great if the climate crisis could hold off until we finish our public-health crisis.” Not a bad point.
Lazarus’s daily newsletter “What a Day” provides highlights that save a lot of time which otherwise would be wasted plowing through insufferably pedestrian prose; it also includes some of the most off the charts wackadoodle (if anyone has a good synonym for that timely adjective, please email me) absurdist right wing sound bites this side of Dr. Strangelove. Think funny/not funny and embrace that contradiction! Note: more than one cup of strong black coffee might be required to get you there.
Lazarus can also be quite funny herself, e.g. on February 23 she wrote, “Disgraced former Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) announced he won’t run against Sen. Raphael Warnock after all, in order to spend more time with his voter suppression.”
For the record, Crooked Media was started by veterans of the Obama Administration, so the site is unlikely to give us any in-depth analyses of Prez #44’s record of drone killings or his State Department’s support for the coup regime in Honduras, a murderous kleptocracy that came to power in 2009 and is the main reason so many people have fled that country for the United States.
But hey, nobody’s perfect. Crooked does feature the stellar podcast “America Dissected,” a sharp weekly show hosted by Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a physician and former city health commissioner. Dr. El-Sayed tracks the COVID-19 beat with a smart leftist perspective in synch with the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez end of the Democratic Party spectrum.
Since this bi-weekly newsletter only comes out about once a month it’s impossible to subject you to dubious insights into too many of the countless stories that drive me crazy, but it would be that way if I was writing two or three times a week, so to hell with it. Given that I haven’t violently gnashed my teeth at the evildoings of The Don’s crime family for several days now, I did think I might subject myself to some 2020-style mental hell and read at least one story about Adolph Barnum’s speech at the dreaded CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) fiend fest. You know, I do it so you don’t have to and all that.
But along with any perfunctory reading of about Biden’s assertion of USA world leadership via the bombing of Syria, such masochistic activity was superseded by the need to catch one more Mae West movie on the Criterion Channel before that series was yanked to make way for a new month (i.e. March). The feature in question, I’m No Angel, provided no lessons for confronting today’s horrific political challenges but Mae’s dialog (she was the sole script writer) did yield plenty of priceless one-liners beyond the obligatory and always welcome “come up and see me sometime.”
There was also a last opportunity to watch the Gordon Parks-directed biopic Leadbelly but sadly I didn’t have the stamina to stare at the screen for another two hours. If any of you wonderful readers have a DVD of that film you are willing to loan me I will be eternally in your debt. Hint, hint.
Since I can’t stop thinking about the following information and have no idea of what to do with it, I’ll conclude with this: ace journalist Ari Berman recently noted that the “57 senators who voted to convict Trump represent 76.7 million more Americans than 43 senators who voted to acquit.” Another not at all fun fact: though each party effectively holds 50 Senate seats, the Democrats represent 41.5 million more U.S. voters than the Republicans do, in a country of 328.2 million people.
As always, you’re welcome!
Notes:
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/2/22/texas_electric_bills_price_surge
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/21/opinion/green-new-deal-texas-blackout.html
https://crooked.com/podcast-series/america-dissected/
Trump lawyer steals coasters, such a perfect moment: https://twitter.com/derekmross/status/1361192843008737281?s=20
Crooked Media newsletter archive and sign-up: https://us19.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=8855a23519ab892dfe2cd34f6&id=baf4f2660e
I ultimately gave in and read about Biden’s sabre-rattling bombardier thing. Grace Paley was an active member of the War Resisters League for many years so I had to consult them: https://www.warresisters.org/biden-dropped-seven-500lb-bombs-last-night-here-what-you-need-know
Special bonus because you deserve it! The MC5 in Europe circa 1972! (Sorry about the ad at the beginning, that wasn’t my doing.) Check out their update of the Stones chestnut “Empty Heart” at about 11:01 (11 minutes, one second):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OSWmel3-XA