I Shall Be Released

Next week North Carolina finally starts early voting. I'm planning on voting the first day, assuming there are no tricky aspects, such as making early votes "provisional" or something. Our current state government adopted the national GOP strategy in place since Mr. Obama was first elected: oppose by any means necessary, obstruct by any available method, and in general suppress any voting blocks that might reasonably be predicted to vote Democratic. I intend, on that grounds alone, to do my tiny part to vote all of the rascals out. We're seeing at the moment polls which show our Republican Governor slightly behind the Democratic candidate, Roy Cooper, who is at present Attorney General. The Democrat running against incumbent senator Richard Burr is also leading. The appalling Trump campaign is surely not helping the NC GOP hopes, nor is the transparent manufacturing of phony wedge issues such as HB-2, which is costing the state economy millions and millions of dollars for no good reason at all. How many fearful parents of teen girls will breathe a sigh of relief that the public bathroom is "safe" from something or other as they stand in the reception line at a Trump rally with their daughter. The dissonance is so bad a pit stop on green is in order. Even Dana Perino yesterday called discretely for a barf bag. http://crooksandliars.com/2016/10/dana-perino-smacks-trump-surrogates-im

I watched a fine documentary biography of Howard Zinn last night. It reminded me of the longer view, something almost all media coverage ignores entirely these days. The basic truth is that relatively speaking, power in the US and the world is mostly in the hands of the vested. When good things do manage to happen with the aid of government, it is a breath of fresh air in a claustrophobic mine shaft. The Vietnam War was a project of both Democrats and Republicans, both Johnson and Nixon. Jimmy Carter was brought low by his naive support of the puppet prince of Iran, who had been installed with the aid of the CIA to thwart a perceived "leftist" but duly elected Iranian President. Bill Clinton sat by while the Rwanda genocide took place, possibly savoring a cigar dipped in the elixir of Monica, and Mrs. Clinton's ambition subjected the nation to Bill's randy itch, and indeed, subjects all of us to the whole queasy ferry crossing yet again this year, after she and her husband had been rejected by the country in 2008. The reason why Hillary Clinton's vote supporting George W. Bush's profoundly immoral war against Iraq is important is because it shows a deep lack of political and even moral courage on her part. It is yet another item in the list ad infinitum of the methodology of triangulation which is the hallmark, start to finish, of Clintonian politics. There are many speculations that Trump was goaded to run by the Clintons in the first place, as being the most easily defeated Republican. There is no doubt that whole cable networks cleared the decks for the Clintons during this election season: hey, I'm talking to you, MSNBC. But most of Trump's problems are in the end the result of Trump himself, and his shocking incompetence obviously translates on the presidential stage to an utter inability to do diplomacy at every level: in his own party, with Democrats, or with the family of nations. As President, Mr. Trump's tendency to self-destruction becomes a tendency that affects all of us and the life of the United States. There might well be no opportunity to repair the kind of damage Mr. Trump might initiate. We have a system of either A or B. Picking the unicorn is a fantasy, and the argument that the better Clinton does in the popular vote can matter is a significant argument in a situation where the Trump side is already claiming that the whole system is "rigged."

The bottom line remains what it is. Mr. Trump is so grandly unqualified that a vote for him is a leap into the abyss. His remarkable percentage of supporters, given the appalling litany of his own campaign oratory, is a testimony to the psychology of hate and brand loyalty worthy of scholarly treatises, which will surely follow his defeat in November. I read today that even the sad, brainwashed students at Liberty Bible College in Lynchburg, VA, are rejecting their college president's call to vote Trump or risk eternal damnation. Perhaps I should revise my ideas about Liberty University: they must be teaching some good thinking habits up there.

I want to just get 'er done! The Nationals lost, a wonderful team I grew very fond of over the past season. I'm hopeful that the team owners will leave everything in place, including their great manager. The 5th game was lost on the field. Daniel Murphy was at the plate. He popped up. End of story. Time to rent some more movies, and watch the fall progress. The hurricane forced the Greenville, NC dance we were to play today to be cancelled. Too many roads flooded. But as one door closed another opened, and Libby and I are now set to play a dance in Morehead City on December 3. By then the waters will surely have receded to their more typical levels.

Onward and Upwards with the Arts. Don't drive through the flood waters.

[Photo from WRAL.com, of Highway 58 in Nashville, NC. We used to stop in Nashville to pick up some barbeque on the way to see the old vet in Tarboro, just downstream on the mighty Tar River.]