My Corona Diary (Take XXXVI): Our County Feels Like A Giant Monopoly Board (Should We Move To Finland?)

<"Coming Soon...":

The Reckoner>

Wherever you lay your hats, you're home
Is that true?

Wherever you lay your hats, you're home
If that's true, why are so many people confused?

<Fun Boy Three, "Going Home">

<i.>

Not too long ago, the Squawker and myself had one of our periodic conversations about whether it's time to bid our current complex goodbye, and look at renting a house. Lots of positives, we figured, when we started discussing the issue again. 

A bigger area to roam around, without some nosy neighbor, nor their dog, shadowing your every move. A chance to strike a better deal for less than what we pay now ($900 a month, which includes $35 or so for water, sewer and trash). A single owner is more flexible (theoretically) than a management company, which typically charges the highest rents.

A shot at getting some decent garden space, which Squawker capitalized on last summer, when our church built a large wooden box for that purpose. The array of cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes and zucchini that we grew helped our food budget, and then some. Small steps like that make a big difference in helping you control your destiny.

So I delegated the Squawker to have a look at rents around here, and guess what? Our search gave us a severe case of sticker shock. It didn't take long to figure out that everything starts at $1,200 per month, and rapidly escalates from there. With one exception, that is: a neighboring town, 10 miles away, dominated by Seventh Day Adventists. Rents over there average $700 per month. Who knows? Maybe the David Koresh image keeps the landlords in check.

Complex or duplex, rental house or townhouse, it doesn't really matter. Across the board, you're looking at paying $1,200, and in some cases, $1,300, even $1,750 per month, in some cases. Just before I started on this point, I asked the Squawker to look once more, this time on craigslist. Maybe only greedy capitalists hung out at the likes of rental.com, or zillow.com, right?

"After all," Squawker told me, "we might as well try to be fair. Maybe we've overlooked something here."

"Maybe," I ventured. "Though it seems like we'd have run across the deal of the century already."

It didn't take long for the few photos we saw to dash our hopes. "Look at this house," Squawker said. "Three-bedroom, $1,250 per month, and all the fixtures look pretty old. They've got clawfoot bathtubs! I see so many of them." Squawker sucked in a breath. "Listen to this: 'Must have $4,000 income per month to qualify.'"

"Well, even at that price," I pointed out, "you're still coughing up a hefty chunk of that income to them. Hence, the condition. So much for that, I guess."

We agree to keep the door ajar, if only a crack, for the future. Still, the news is pretty unsettling, since I grew up around these parts. If I wanted to realize some nostalgic wish of coming back here, I'd need some awfully deep pockets, or I couldn't do it. Simple as that.

<"Coming Soon"/Take II:

The Reckoner>

Is this my home? This is my home
This is where I'm from
Is this home? This must be home
But is this where I belong?

Fun Boy Three, "Going Home"

<ii.>

Absurd as this whole situation sounds, I could console myself with certain bromides, like this old chestnut: As bad as you have it, there's always someone else worse off. Right? Fair enough, but that bromide only goes so far. If the best result in life is barely avoiding the race to the bottom, well...It's not a recipe for a rich and rewarding one, is it?

Or this one: Possession is nine-tenths of the law, as many of the unfortunates left destitute by COVID-19 have discovered, who made the mistake of counting on rent relief that took too long to arrive, never materialized, or simply didn't help them, because the landlords refused to accept it. If you don't own anything substantial, the law doesn't apply, so it doesn't help you, apparently. Simple as that.

Or look at the West Coast, whose manicured liberal facade hides some ghastly social ills underneath it all. In San Francisco, where studio apartments average $3,000 a month, the city is girding itself to sweep away the "anchor-outs," as they're derisively called -- residents living rent-free, if illegally, on the water -- by 2026. 

City officials tick off the usual abstract concerns -- aesthetic, environmental, and legal, not to mention grousing from deeper-pocketed residents -- as reason enough to finally force the issue, though how much success they'll have remains to be seen (see the link below). Left unsaid is where the "anchor-outs" go, once their boats end up crushed, or confiscated. No answer is coming, because city officials don't have one, or aren't interested, nor organized enough, to provide it.

Or you could try something bolder, as Finland has done, as Juha Kaakinen suggests in this commentary in the September 2016 commentary of the Guardian, which -- along with the bare fruits of our recent search -- inspired me to finish off this post. Kaakinen is the chief executive of the Y-Foundation, which aims to end homelessness in Finland "by increasing the amount of affordable rental housing made available to homeless people."

Now, there's a concept, right? Too simple by half, but one that often eludes urban planners, who often focus too closely on the nuts and bolts of their proposed solutions -- rather than what people need. Like housing, for instance. As you'll read in Kaakinen's commentary, Finland opted to buy flats and convert them into rental apartments for homeless people, as well as creating new housing for them.

For example, one of the key steps involved renovating and rehabbing a 250-bed hostel run by the Salvation Army into an 80-unit apartment building, with on-site staff. Such moves become their own building blocks, so to speak, of a long term, systematic approach, instead of the usual "catch as catch can" approach that planners often take, as Kaakinen writes:

"To get the most out of housing first in terms of social and economic benefits it needs to be mainstream homelessness policy, not just individual pilot projects. Housing first needs housing stock and there is no real homeless policy without the housing supply to implement it. The cornerstone of any decent housing policy is the sufficient supply of affordable social housing. 

"To say that the scarcity of funding in any western European country is the reason for lack of affordable social housing is either an understatement or a conscious misunderstanding. It is simply a question of political will."

A question of political will -- I couldn't have said it better. That's exactly what's lacking, especially in my neck of the woods, where the City Commission has focused on building condos and luxury housing developments for seasonal, summer and weekend residents who don't live here year round -- unlike the Squawker and myself. 

Yes, long term solutions to social ills like homelessness take money and time, not to mention setting aside the resources to tackle them. But Kaakinen's point is well taken. If you don't start, you'll never reach the finish line, let alone the 50-yard line.

It'll be interesting to see how Finland's homeless policy is faring now. Maybe I'll update that for a future post. Meanwhile, the Squawker and myself will keep the door open, if only a crack. And if the political will doesn't materialize? The answer is simple: move to Finland. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,

Before They Buy Your Land From You)

The Guardian:
Lessons From Finland:
Helping Homeless People

Starts With Giving Them Homes:
https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/sep/14/lessons-from-finland-helping-homeless-housing-model-homes

The L.A. Times:
They Live Rent-Free On San Francisco Bay.

But Now Their "Floating Homeless Encampment" Faces Extinction:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-11-09/they-live-rent-free-on-san-francisco-bay-but-now-their-floating-homeless-encampment-faces-extinction

The Y-Foundation:

https://world-habitat.org/world-habitat-awards/winners-and-finalists/y-foundation/

Jobs To Nowhere (Take V): Beware Of Hipster Kittens Baring Fangs

 

<"Ladies 'N' Gentlemen...
Coming Soon/Take I":
The Reckoner>

Suggested Soundtracks:

"Living On Unemployment" (Newtown Neurotics) 

"Sorrow" (Pink Floyd)

<Storyteller's Note: The following account, though strictly personal and anecdotal, is true. The names have been changed, masked or omitted to avoid retribution from the guilty.>

Reckoner's Note: For those just tuning in, we last left Yer Humbler Narrator struggling to transition from yet another small town paper (The Daily Retreader), to the advertising agency life. Will this time finally prove the charm? To read the previous entries, follow the link below (then click "Older Posts" to go back to the beginning).

<"Up Against It/Take I":
The Reckoner>

<i.>

You settle into a new routine, one imposed by the necessity of losing your assistant editor's job. The Daily Retreader kept its promise to be kind, at least. They didn't fight your unemployment application, a pleasant shift from the previous employer, The Daily Bugle, whose overdogs fiercely fought all of them. Management showed no mercy, not even for the pressman who'd injured his hand, as he tried to retrieve some material from the jaws of the printing press downstairs. 

No matter. As long as you call in to the automated unemployment system, and report basic details -- like whatever new gig you're theoretically trying to land -- that $300-and-some per week will keep coming. You continue working behind the scenes at The Connection, the alternative performance space that you hope will blossom into the next CBGB's (or something like it). Who knows? Maybe those gigs that you're playing every month, or other month, will jump-start something, too. That's the idea, anyway.

Suddenly, you have more time on your hands, which makes itself felt in unexpected ways. You can lean into private pursuits, like writing songs, and hanging more often with your small circle of progressive friends. With no right-wing boss glaring over your shoulder anymore, it's safe to join the local peace and justice group. That move feels good.

You can take the wife to more of her favored activities, like garage sales, which felt hard to squeeze into the second shift grind that's defined your life for 15-odd years. The weekend loses its meaning, "because every night around here is Saturday night," you joke. 

To your great surprise, life after unemployment looks and feels a lot like life before it. The only difference is, your benefits come with an expiration date, which you're not thinking about right now. Whatever your checks don't cover, you can acquire through your bartering skills or connections, not to mention your eye for a bargain. Now that you've finally got some time to think, why not use it? That's the theory, anyway.

<"Up Against It/Take II":

The Reckoner>

<ii.>

Here's the problem with most theories, though: those head-on collisions with reality can be rough. For one thing, your little town, Highlandville, is slowly coming apart at the seams. Four major employers closed their doors, right around the time The Daily Bugle voted you off the island, taking almost 1,000 jobs with them (mostly auto-related). There's plenty of free time for everybody, but it makes for an unnerving picture. Suddenly, the image of calm, self-assured small town stability that drew you here seven years ago just seems like another mirage.

You continue to survive on federal unemployment extensions, as the national economy begins taking on water. You know it's a tough town when the local oil change place closes. If the local economy can't support something so basic, what's that mean for everybody else?

The answer comes just as your job search bears unexpected fruit. An ad agency in your old hometown needs a copywriter (or Senior Brand Writer, as they're calling it). Your brain ticks off the pluses. An annual salary that's one and a half times what you made as a reporter. A better overall benefits package. The chance to enter a different field, at a growing company, with roughly 200 employees at three different sites.

The minuses? You'll lose all the social connections you've made these last seven years. Moving sucks; it's grueling and stressful, though the agency, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Studios, is paying $500 toward those costs. Nobody's done that for you before. Your wife feels far less enthusiastic, because it means starting over yet again, trying to make friends, and figure out what's going on.

You're not exactly keen on that prospect, but sticking around raises its own problems. The unemployment extensions are about to run out, and most of Highlandville's gainful gigs are retail, restaurant or telemarketing McJobs. Sticking around might mean toiling for way less money than ever, which is a non-starter.

What's more, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em's job offer is number one on a list of one. If you pass, it's not clear when (or if) the next shot might roll around. So you swallow your doubts, cross your fingers, and roll the dice. It's just like the Okies did in the '30s, minus the moving truck. You've had to gamble before, so what else is new?

<"Ladies 'N' Gentlemen,

Coming Soon/Take II":

The Reckoner>

<iii.>

Fall of '06. The first couple months pass uneventfully. Your mind loses irself in the nitty-gritty that accompanies any new beginning. Getting to know your new colleagues, as the lay of the land unfolds. Learning the house rules. Working out the fastest ways of doing things, because they're throwing a lot on your plate, just like your other employers did.

Your first major project involves writing copy for a series of water filter ad layouts, which undergo an endless cycle of revisions, that you spend an equally endless amount of man-hours checking against a PDF file that seems barely different than the last one, than the last one, than the last one, and so on. At a certain point, it feels like highway hypnosis, as your eyes glaze over the latest minor revisions.

You stifle the inevitable pangs of disquiet. Didn't they promise this job would raise your creativity to new heights? Sure doesn't seem that way so far. You feel more and more like a glorified layout artist and proofreader, and less and less of a writer, which isn't what you had in mind.

Every company has a power center, and a pecking order, regardless of its rhetoric ("Hey, man, we're one big happy family. Together, everyone achieves more"). But it's hard to tell what your new workmates actually think about these issues. Most of your conversations are friendly, but superficial, and offer few clues about the reality behind the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em curtain. 

Shortly before Christmas, the water filter project finally wraps up. Dominic, your boss, offers a few congratulatory clucks about your contributions. "You realize, you're gonna have to get insanely familiar with all these water filters." 

You maintain your best poker face, while your brain is already ticking off into fullblown anxiety. The red lights in your brain start kicking in: Jesus, I hope he's kidding. If not? I'm in serious trouble.

<"The Hammer Drops.../Take I":

The Reckoner>

<iv.>

Trouble doesn't take long to burble up, once the inevitable warm 'n' fuzzy Christmas holiday buzz wears off. You and your colleagues are now spending a lot of time working up endless minor variations on all those eye glazing PDFs. The days of freely brainstorming ideas, like potential names for brands of garage storage organizers, are long gone.

Instead, Dominic starts telling you what kinds of categories, names and related items, like potential makes and models, are potentially acceptable. He tells you that the clients are getting pickier, so your game to needs ratchet up accordingly. 

How interesting, you muse, since Rock 'Em Sock 'Em has one major client on a list of one, Pynwheel Corp., which makes washers, driers, and refrigerators. Oh, yeah, and exotic accessories, like garage storage organizers. With roughly 4,000 workers, Pynwheel is also your new hometown's largest major employer.

Various minor clients and projects come and go, but through all of the usual corporate churn, Pynwheel remains the constant at Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Studios. They're also an increasingly stressful constant, judging by the ad reps' hangdog expressions as they return from their dreaded weekly "status conferences," across the street from your office. They all look like they've been rolled hard, and put away wet.

You cross yourself and shudder, thank God I don't look like that. But soon, your eyes start to glaze over anew. Deadlines wax 'n' wane, but you get different answers about what's due when, which means you make some, but miss others. Dominic and his sidekick, Wendell -- who doesn't oversee your department, but insists on parking his stringbean physique at your meetings, anyway -- start to grouse about your progress. 

A good example comes in mid-February '07, when Dominic bitches you out for not answering his latest email right after its arrival. He breaks that news by sending yet another email. You hear Dominic's huff ring out in your head, as you read to yourself, silently: "The Rock 'Em Sock 'Em way is speed, speed and more speed. You need to keep this in mind, going forward."

You sigh aloud, and do what any sane person in your predicament does: take longer lunch breaks, and more frequent bathroom breaks. Hell, it's a flexible schedule, right? So you wring whatever flexibility you can out of it, for dear life. How else are you going to stay sane?

You know you're losing interest, but can't bring yourself to admit it. The siren song of sunk costs is awfully hard to ignore. Maybe this advertising lark will work out, if you get past these bumps in the road. Then again, you probably stand a better chance of spotting a pig flying past your window. If you close your eyes, you might just make it look shiny and sleek enough, if only in your imagination.

<"The Hammer Drops.../Take II":

The Reckoner>

<v.>

A month later, the hammer swings, and then, it drops, this time, for good. Dominic and Wendell summon you for a closed-door sitdown, one they've booked with no stated purpose. Uh-oh. Your gut knots up in the familiar fight or flight response. Oh, shit, here it comes again.

The sitdown begins uneventfully enough. "How do you think things are going so far?" Dominic asks, without the confrontational tone he drops, when he wants something from you (which is, most of the time).

Dominic's invitation allows you to kid yourself momentarily. Oh, you think, maybe they're setting up the next evaluation. Still, you try to play it cool, and noncommittal: "Seems like it's going okay, as far as I know. What's up?"

Dominic and Wendell swap squint-eyed glances. They don't really believe you, and you don't really believe yourself, either. It's the classic "don't ask, don't tell" dance that the employer-employee relationship, in all its feudal confines, currently requires.

"Well, that's not what we see going on," Dominic responds. "I really wanted this to work out, honestly. I really did..."

Your ears block out the rest of Dominic's fuzzy warbles, with the odd reinforcement from Wendell, contented with playing Robin to his buddy's Batman. Basically, you're getting voted off the island, with little more than a "thank you, and good luck," for your trouble.

Still, you push back where it makes sense to do so. "Guys, you had me schlep out here twice, to interview. You weren't sure if my background was a good fit then. Now, all of a sudden, what gives?"

Dominic holds his poker face, and restates the party line. "I really wanted this to work out. But it's not working out."

They ask if you want to clean out your desk, but you say no. You wouldn't let them parade you around like a whipped dog before, and you're not starting now. You shuffle out into the 40-degree April sunlight, wondering what you'll tell the wife, and what the next move feels like.

All those beautiful hipster kittens, who wanted to make you feel like your new best friend? All those superficial sidebar conversations by the water cooler? All those seeming coos of approval, whenever you dropped an idea that somebody claimed to like?

You didn't see them baring their fans, until it was way, way too late. They left you stranded on the midway, with your pockets emptier, and your spirit poorer, because you didn't pick the right shell, or the right pea. Now that you've been taken for a ride, yet again, it all feels so grubby and cheap.

<"Hipster Kitty's Farewell Address":

The Reckoner>

<Coda>

You're in line at the Post Office, a couple months after parting ways with Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Studios. You're standing in line, getting ready to ship out an eBay package or two. Your selling is yielding mixed results, but every little bit helps, as they say. Especially in your current situation.

You pay the clerk, pocket the receipt, and turn around to leave. Just then, you're face to face with Bailey, whom you first worked under -- churning out copy about the wonders of Pynwheel's various accessories, like its garage door openers -- until Dominic came into the picture.

You blink, and you stare straight at her. Bailey blinks, and stares straight back. Finally, her lips start moving, but not the way you'd expect. There's no, "How are you doing," "What's new," nor even, "What are you doing now?" Instead, you get something like this: 

“You're not 

missing anything.”

"Huh? Excuse me?" Are you hearing what you're hearing? You want to make sure.

Bailey edges closer, as the line moves along. Then she repeats herself:

"You're not missing anything! Really!”

For a moment, you both stand there, frozen in place. You're not sure what to do. Let her have it with both barrels? Well, your issue's with Dominic and Wendell, not Bailey, so that's out. 

Spit out something vaguely snarky, like, "Thanks for the scraps?" Again, you're not mad at her. But even if you were, she probably wouldn't get it. Anyway, what are the odds of seeing her again? Not great.

So you take the middle option, and say something along these lines: "Oh, gee, thanks for clearing that one up, I guess. See you later." You know the drill by now; it's what the "don't ask, don't tell" dance demands.

You can't take the absurdity of these last few months seriously, especially when the freelance life is beckoning. Some promising new leads are popping up, mainly from local correspondent work, so with a little bit of footwork, you might beat the bastards yet. 

You might be able to forge ahead without putting the Daily Bugles and the Retreaders and the Rock 'Em Sock 'Ems in charge of your life, ever again. 

Another thought strikes you, as you leave the Post Office. Whatever happens now, you'll probably see a flying pig before you take stock in any of these people again. 

And next time, when those hipster kittens start calling? You'll know better. You'll know enough to leave them to their devices. Maybe then, they'll actually start leaving you alone. --The Reckoner

Links To Go:

Jobs To Nowhere (Takes I-IV):

https://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/search/label/jobs%20to%20nowhere

Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow Creeps (Take IV): The January 6th Coup , A Year Later

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

<From Macbeth, spoken by Macbeth:
William Shakespeare>

<i.>

The stuff of anniversaries is often the stuff of nightmares, as well as dreams, and this one is no different. One year ago today, Donald J. Trump, America's 45th President, once again defied the familiar script, in which the former Commander-in-Chief turns over the keys of power to his successor, who takes his oath of office, and prepares to make his own mark on the nation's long-standing democratic experiment.

It almost didn't work out that way. Raging like King Lear at the forces he felt had unfairly denied him a second term, Trump mustered the powers that remained to him, determined to hang on, against the others -- Antifa, Joe Biden, mobs of woke Millennials, the undocumented -- on which he'd focused so much public fury during his tenure.

As courts turned back his repeated claims of electoral fraud, Trump shifted his focus to its internal machinery. If he couldn't get federal judges to listen, maybe he could disrupt the certification of electoral votes. Or stall the process long enough to seize ballots and equipment, possibly by declaring martial law, under some national security pretext or other.

The true nature of these efforts are only becoming apparent now, as bits and pieces continue to surface, sometimes from co-conspirators like former trade envoy Peter Navarro -- whose new book, In Trump Time, proudly details those efforts -- other times, from tidbits of a special Congressional committee's investigation that have leaked through the news media.

Depending on which accounts you believe, the mob of supporters summoned for Trump's last ride were either egged on by a Chief Executive consumed by "Stop the steal" notions of personal betrayal, who planned to get even, all along. Or they broke into the Capitol in a mass fit of spontaneous rage, after hearing of Vice President Mike Pence's refusal to stop Joe Biden's certification as President-elect.

Five protesters died, including protester Ashli Babbit, shot dead by Capitol police as she tried to climb through the broken window of a barricaded door. Three others died from heart attacks, plus one from an accidental amphetamine overdose, and trampling by others as they swarmed the building.

Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick died the following day of a stroke from the stress of an ordeal that included being pepper sprayed. Four more officers killed themselves during the next seven months, and an additional 138 were injured, 15 of them severely enough to require hospitalization.

The U.,S. Capitol's looting and vandalization resulted in an estimated $1.5 million in damages that included rampant defecation on floors and walls, as well as damage to statues, paintings and furniture from fire extinguishers and pepper spray canisters. Taxpayers effectively subsidized the resulting repair and cleanup, because the building had no insurance for such contingencies. 

Those measures also included an additional $30 million spent on security fencing that remained in place through early July, with the building largely off limits to visitors. The images of Fortress Washington, as some commentators called it, bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the bombed-out likes of Belfast, or Beirut, two other locales scarred by sectarian violence spurred by one side or the other's refusal to share power. For editorial writers, such images allowed them to say, "Such things couldn't happen here." Until January 6, 2021, that is.

<ii.>

So what, exactly, has happened, one full year after the event? Not much, so far, though that may soon change. Republicans continue working hard to memory hole the events that almost capsized our democracy, a challenge eased by a COVID-19-dominated news cycle, and public weariness with headlines that bear nothing but endless calamity. That, too, may change, depending on what the special Congressional committee -- the 1/6 Committee, as it's known -- uncovers.

For most of the insurrectionists, the putschists, the seditionists, whatever you call them, the legal fallout has been relatively low. With federal guidelines that cap misdemeanor sentencing at six months to a year, most first-time offenders could cut plea deals that involve no prison time at all, a fact that's disturbed some federal judges during the sentencing hearings. 

The stiffest sentences have, naturally, gone out to those implicated in violent or particularly disruptive conduct, such as Jacob Chansley, who received 41 months for his role as the infamous self-styled QAnon "Shaman." While nobody's suggesting that someone should get 20 years for crapping on a desk, how all this prosecutorial leniency (see BuzzFeed link below) will deter future insurrectionists remains to be seen.

The situation holds uncomfortable echoes of the soft punishment dished out to Adolf Hitler, who served eight months o fthe five-year sentence he received for instigating the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The future German dictator's experience, as most historians agree, convinced him to seek a legal path to legitimacy, and the power he craved, even as his supporters eagerly committed bolder acts of street violence in his name. That, too, sounds sadly familiar.

Trump supporters, by and large, remain subject to the alternate universe they've inhabited since he won the Presidency in 2016. For example, only a fifth describe the attempted coup as an insurrection, while four in 10 believe those who attacked the Capitol were leftists disguised as Trump supporters. (For other poll findings, see Down With Tyranny's link below.)

Congressional enablers like Congressman Mo Brooks, of Alabama, and Senators Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley, continue to show up for work, despite reports that implicate them in the plan to delay certifying Biden's victory. Calls for their expulsion have largely subsided, leaving the wish we stated in Part I of this series ("their desertion of democratic norms should not go unnoticed, nor unchallenged") to hang in the air, unanswered, the language of the Fourteenth Amendment (see above) notwithstanding.

Those enabling the enablers don't seem unduly alarmed about their prospects of losing the next coup, judging by the barrage of laws they've unleashed (425 measures, in 49 states) that range from outright, old school voter suppression (Georgia, Texas), to language that shifts control of elections to partisan bodies (see ABC News link below).

Republicans are making no attempt to hide what they're doing, amid the stale talking points of "election integrity," or "making it easier to vote, and harder to cheat" they're invoking to justify it. They can do it, because Democratic efforts to protect voting rights have stalled miserably in the Senate, thanks to fifth columnists in their midst (Senators Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema), and the party's inability to shake its addiction to unilateral disarmament.

<iii.>

And what of the man riding the center of the storm? Many quarters of the mainstream media cling to dismissals of a 2024 Trump Presidential run as a grift to make bank off his base, or bid to stall the legal reckoning that he's avoided so far. It's a reading that seems slightly at odds with Trump's vigorous attempts to purge the party ranks of his critics, and continue casting an outsized shadow over its future. 

So far, he's made 40 Congressional and nine gubernatorial picks, with much of his ire focused on those he sees as crossing him personally, like Georgia's infamous vote suppressing governor, Brian Kemp. Does that sound like someone who only seems content to count the cash, and call it a day? We doubt it.

The fallout of Biden's presidency isn't exactly discouraging Trump dreams of a dramatic comeback in 2024. On one level, Biden has scored some impressive wins, such as his confirmation of 40 federal judges -- the most of any new President since Ronald Reagan's election, in 1980. By and large, they're a more diverse and better-qualified lot than the zealous foot soldiers that typify Republican presidencies, and should balance out the latter group's excesses. 

The American Rescue Act's passage provided $1.9 trillion in much-needed relief to Americans struggling to stay afloat during a never-ending pandemic, while the approval of $1 trillion in infrastructure aid should certainly feel like welcome news for communities hoping to get a piece of that action.

On other levels, Biden's presidency is slipping into a familiar disconnect of, "Do as we say, not as we do." One example are his actions on environmental issues, which are rapidly emerging as his administration's biggest, blackest hole, as evidenced by its issuance of oil and gas drilling permits (3,091 on public lands and water, or 332 per month) compared to 300 per month for Trump, according to CBNC.

Other goals are falling by the wayside after Big Money gets to clearing its throat. Last month, for example, Congress largely shrugged off calls for badly-needed structural reforms, like paid family leave, to pass a $777.7 billion defense budget that wound up $25 billion higher than the White House wanted, and nearly $38 billion more than Trump himself spent.

Defending democracy is a tricky business that requires the ability to look behind, as well as ahead. How we got here is as important as where we're headed. Protecting voting rights is critical and necessary, but so is trying to ensure that social conditions don't slide to the point of giving someone like Trump the foothold they need, to gain the power they crave.

Yet, unable (or unwilling) to deliver on their domestic priorities, Democrats are once again reduced to hoping that enough people show up to rescue them, in spite of themselves, and that Republicans lack the smarts to get out of their own way, as they continue measuring the drapes. If you're hoping to defend democracy, there are simpler and smarter ways of doing it. This passive, reactive approach isn't it.

 

<iv.>

Improbably, though, embers of hope continue to flicker amid the barrage of apocalyptic imagery. By all accounts, the 1/6 Committee has moved at a faster than anticipated clip, in pulling together the various strands of the conspiracy. They've interviewed some 300 witnesses, though only 50 have been identified publicly, as Politico reports: 

"They’ve blanketed Donald Trump’s allies with subpoenas, referred three key witnesses for contempt of Congress prosecution and exerted pressure like few committees ever have. By all accounts, they’re making inroads into the depths of the Trump White House and unearthing evidence that will make that dark day look even darker."

Transparency, of course, is the best hope for bringing light to that particular darkness. From our standpoint, what's most striking about the January 6th coup, and its immediate aftermath, is how so many observers missed the signposts that led up to it. 

In hindsight, the dots have been there to connect all along, starting with the fury that Barack Obama's victory unleashed among the more extremist and racist quarters of a population determined to inhabit the world of the 1950s, when women and minorities were expected to "know their place," or risk legal and extralegal retribution.

The "birther" movement that emerged to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Obama's birth certificate -- the same one that Trump embraced, eagerly and publicly -- soon gave away to more dangerous movements. The rise of shootings by racist and rightist militants, such as the New Zealand mass shooter who livestreamed his massacre of 51 Muslims, would surely feel familiar to any Weimar-era German who witnessed similar incidents during the 1920s and 1930s, as their democracy slowly, then rapidly, came apart at the seams.

Media narratives dismissing the shooters as social misfits living in their mom's basement, or "lone wolves" with mental problems, as Professor Erroll Southers, quoted in "Trafficked"'s episode on white supremacy (see clip below, on Military.com) makes clear: "What Southers is diagnosing is a national blind spot, an inability for a country founded by, and still largely run, by white people, to recognize the very real threat of white extremism."

We urge readers to watch that episode, which lays bare the global connections and increasingly sophisticated outreach recruiting techniques being utilized by groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, who had members among the January 6th rioters. If nothing else, the events of January 6th should serve as a wakeup call, particularly for agencies like the FBI, who have largely spent two decades focusing on yesterday's fight against the (largely) nonexistent threat of Islamic terrorism. 

Tomorrow's fight, as the "Trafficked" episode demonstrates, will prove a dirtier, different beast. Critics who cheer the deplatforming of Trump, or loudmouthed Congressional cheerleaders like Marjorie Taylor Greene, also need to take a closer look at the role of platforms like Facebook, whose algorithms, by all accounts, continue to promote militant extremism for the sake of multibillion corporate profits. It is hard to imagine how democracy can function, when such instincts are allowed to run unchecked.

For democracy to survive in its present form, it requires understanding how drastically the perils to its existence have changed. The mere absence of misfortune, as some mainstream outlets have suggested, is not a cause for celebration.

 

The January 6th coup attempt did not succeed, because our institutions held so strongly. It mainly failed because Trump and his allies didn't have the right people in the right places to do their bidding, or relevant control of electoral machinery nationwide, to achieve the outcome they so fervently desired.

Whatever happens from here on out, let us redouble our efforts to defend democracy, renew scrutiny of those who seek to undermine it, and resolve to learn from the errors that have dogged the American democratic experiment from making good on its promise of social and political equality for all who seek it. 

It has been fashionable, as of late, to repeat the oft-quoted truism, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." A related expression might well suggest, "If you want to meet the moment, don't rely on the luxury of getting a second mistake." As the backsliding of democratic norms in Hungary and Poland demonstrates -- or, for that matter, Germany's Weimar-era experience -- the price of failure is too high. So are the penalties for falling short. --The Reckoner

LInks To Go
ABC News: 10 New Laws

Shift Power Over Elections To Partisan Entities:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dozen-state-laws-shift-power-elections-partisan-entities/story?id=79408455

Brennan Center For Justice:

Voting Laws Roundup: October 2021:

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-october-2021

BuzzFeed News: Most Capitol Rioters

Probably Aren't Looking At Maximum Prison Sentences:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/capitol-insurrection-jail-time-jan-6-cases

Down With Tyranny:

Trump Won't Be In Prison

When We Wake Up Tomorrow...But Should He Be?:
https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/trump-won-t-be-in-prison-tomorrow-when-we-wake-up-but-should-he-be

Military.com: NatGeo Series Asks

If The US Has A Domestic Terror Problem:
https://www.military.com/off-duty/television/2022/01/05/natgeo-series-asks-if-usa-has-domestic-terror-problem.html

Politico: What Impeachment Taught The 1/6 Committee:
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2021/12/17/what-impeachment-taught-the-1-6-commission-495514

The Huffington Post:

Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn

On Jan. 6: "It Can Happen Again":

https://www.yahoo.com/news/capitol-police-officer-harry-dunn-162848312.html

My Corona Diary (Take XXXV): It's 2022 Already. Feel Any Different Yet?

 

<"Here's Looking At You, Kid..."/

The Reckoner>

<i.>

Here's a rhetorical question that sums up New Year's Day perfectly for me. One of my Facebook friends asked, "Why do we celebrate merely making it from one end of the calendar to another?" It's a fitting one, especially when you consider how rough the last couple years have been -- from the onset of COVID-19, to the inevitable economic convulsions that accompanied it, and the twilight of the Trump era, as its Dear Leader plotted to hang onto the power that he saw slipping from his grasp (even though 84 million people told him so last November).

The Squawker and I kicked off 2022 in low-key fashion. Amid ominous rumblings of a heavy snowstorm gripping the Midwest, with four to eight inches expected for our area, we ordered an extra large pizza (delivered), and watch the usual barrage of special programs targeted at unwilling shut ins like ourselves. 

Hence, we opted for gentler, quirkier fare during the day, like a marathon of "Crikey! It's The Irwins." Seeing Australia's first family of animal rescue in the cavernously hollow space of their massive zoo was truly surreal, as Steve Irwin's widow, Terri, recounted the challenges of struggling to feed 1,200 animals when the COVID-19 bomb dropped. "Definitely not an experience for the faint-hearted," I told myself.

Our choices got progressively quirkier and darker as the night wore on. I caught the first half of a "Columbo" howcatchem I've seen before, I think -- "Publish Or Perish," featuring Jack Cassidy one of the oiliest, most slippery villains ever to grace the show. 

More commonly identified these days as David Cassidy's/Keith Partirdge's late father, Jack really got around '70s TV, typically playing a heel who's there to get his comeuppance -- but few people played those roles with such zest and relish. (Or, as his Wikipedia bio describes it: "His frequent professional persona was an urbane, witty, confident egotist with a dramatic flair." That's a fair description, I think.)

I wrapped up the night with "Disappeared: Finding Andrea," a four-part look at the disappearance of Andrea Knabel, a single mother of two who -- wait for it -- often volunteered to look for missing persons. "How surreal is that?" I asked Squawker. "How safe can anybody feel, when the finder of missing persons goes missing?"

The Squawker let out a short, sharp sigh, and leaned forward on the couch, where an art project needed closer attention. "I can't believe we're starting three years of this." I didn't have to guess what that last word meant. "I'm waiting till spring, and then, I'm living my life. I can't deal take anymore of this."

It's 2022 already. Feel any different yet? I thought so.

<Setting Sons/The Jam:
Front Cover (1979)*

Meet me on the wastelands - later this day

We'll sit and talk and hold hands maybe

For there's not much else 

to do in this drab and colorless place...

We'll sit amongst the rubber tires

Amongst the discarded bric-a-brac

People have no use for - 

amongst the smoldering embers of yesterday...

<"Wasteland">

<ii.>

It's been awhile since I've referenced a song here from Paul Weller, or the Jam, that band that cast him as a "spokesman for a generation," or something along those lines (not that he encouraged that label, which he publicly disdained). But I find his lyrics as relevant as ever, and "Wasteland" certainly qualifies, even if it's not as mentioned as often as the "biggies" in their back catalog (like "Away From The Numbers," "In The City," "Start!," or "That's Entertainment," for example).

"Wasteland" itself has led something of a checkered existence, closing out side one of the UK edition of Setting Sons (Polydor Records: 1979), the album on which it appeared, but then, shifted to the closing position on side two for the Canadian and US versions. That strikes me as a better idea than the UK version ending with a cover of Martha & The Vandellas' "Heatwave." 

I have no issues with "Heatwave," per se. However, closing on such a bouncy, upbeat note seems a little jarring, especially after the listener has absorbed songs about enforced unemployment ("Smithers-Jones," bassist Bruce Foxton's brilliant songwriting cameo), social apathy ("Burning Sky"), the breakup of friendships ("Thick As Thieves"), the loneliness of suburbia ("Private Hell"), and the tolls of classism ("The Eton Rifles") and war ("Little Boy Soldiers"). So 

Setting Sons marked the Jam's fourth album, one that cemented its position as critical and commercial favorites -- entering the UK charts at #4 on its November 1979 release. "Making that album was an intense business, as we concentrated a lot more on the sound and the arrangements of the songs, and we seemed to do many more takes than we were used to," drummer Rick Buckler observes in his memoir, That's Entertainment: My Life In The Jam (2015). "By the end of the recordings, there were boxes of tapes around the wall of the control room."

"Wasteland" certainly reflects that brief, one that I'd call "the sound of ambitious maturity," perhaps. Start with the title, which reminds me of T.S. Eliot's 434-line epic poem, "The Waste Land." I doubt that Weller intended it that way, since he didn't express enthusiasm for Eliot's work in interviews (unlike, say, George Orwell). 

But the association is hard to escape, anyway, and the theme certainly fits -- of "the decline of the old certainties that had previously held Western society together," according to enotes.com. "This has caused society to break up, and there's to be no going back. All that's left to do is to salvage broken cultural fragments from a vanished past."

That dark and doleful mood dogs the nameless protagonists, "The ones overshadowed by the monolith monstrosities called council homes," who are  caught in some dramatic social catastrophe that's not their fault, and not of their own making, but one they feel powerless to change ("For to be caught smiling is to acknowledge life/A brave but useless show of compassion/And that is forbidden in this drab and colorless world").

It's 2022. Feel any different yet? I thought so.

Meet me later but we'll have to hold hands
Tumble and fall (tumble and falling)
Like our lives (like our lives)
Exactly like our lives

<"Wasteland": Closing lines>

<iii.>

In the end, all that's left for the narrator is to invite his companion -- friend, loved one, or co-conspirator, who knows? -- to somehow look beyond the bleakness of their surroundings ("The holy Coca-Cola tins, the punctured footballs"), and hark back to better times long, long gone, as the song suggests, though there are no guarantees, even of seizing that moment ("We'll sit and probably hold hands"). 

The dominant impression is one of sodden resignation, reinforced by a recorder that floats above the band's signature Who-like power trio thunder. It's an unusual choice, but a great choice, one that manages to make "Wasteland" feel lilting and menacing at the same time. It's a suitable counterpoint to the dour observations that Weller's dishing out, such as: "We'll smile, but only for seconds."

Sounds like what we're going through now, doesn't it? No matter where you cast your eye around the landscape, the fog of uncertainty feels hard to shake -- such as our local hospital, where some two dozen nurses walked off the job last month, or so I heard. Our local church services have abruptly gone back to online-only, after several congregants tested positive for COVID, and forced them into quarantine at home.

I myself dodged a bullet of sorts a couple weeks ago, when I was invited to cover a fair dealing with small cities' infrastructure problems. Long story short, I didn't end up going. I later found out, through the grapevine, that one of the organizers tested came down with COVID.

That news, in turn, forced several people I knew to get themselves tested. Fortunately, nobody reported any ill effects, but the whole business left me redoubling my vows to keep my public distance, both figuratively, and literally.

The big picture news doesn't feel any better. Last month, if you don't already know, Congress approved the final version of our national defense budget. As usual, they did it late at night, when fewer people would pay attention (presumably). As usual, only 51 Democrats, mostly pro-peace progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, voted against it. 

As usual, the final figure ($777.7 billion) wound up way above the initial estimate ($752 billion) that President Biden proposed. (In contrast, Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, spent $740 billion.) "Meanwhile," as progressive Senate candidate Erica Smith notes, "a bill that would dramatically upgrade our climate change response, expand our healthcare system, and build more than one million affordable housing units, is left for dead in the Senate."

Why? Well, essentially, because reactionary greed creeps like Senator Joe Manchin ("D"-WV) don't like it. They'll think you, oh, I don't know. Hoover it up your nose, or something, the same place where they stick that COVID testing swab. 

That's doubtful, but the absurdity of such a premise tempts me to joke: "Look at the bright side, folks. At least they've let us know where we really stand, in the greater scheme of things."

It's 2022 already. Feeling any different yet? Me neither, but I'm ready to pull "Wasteland" back out again, for another few spins. It's at the end of a cassette tape, but you know what? Something tells me, I'd better make the effort. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Before The Wasteland Gets Dark):

Al Jazeera: Biden Signs
Enormous US Military Budget Into Law:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/27/biden-signs-enormous-us-military-budget-into-law

Down WIth Tyranny: Guest Post:
Erica Smith: Re-Evaluating Defense:
https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/do-you-want-congress-to-re-direct-funds-towards-domestic-priorities-instead-of-war-vote-for-that

The Jam: Wasteland (Lyric Video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRvXfVEKgdw

Vox.com: Why The US 
Is Paying More For The Military...:
https://www.vox.com/22840615/us-defense-spending-increase-afghanistan-withdrawal

One Last Blast Of Jam Trivia...

(*Setting Sons's front cover is an Andrew Douglas photo of Benajmin Clemens' 1919 bronze sculpture, The St. Johns Ambulance Bearers, which the band found in keeping with the themes they were exploring, according to Buckler. Yet that choice came with a slight hitch, as he notes: "Sadly, that bronze sculpture has been in long-term storage for many years, so nobody has been able to see it for a long time." Guess that fits the current mood, too, doesn't it?)