Independence

This year's national birthday celebration seemed very...troubling.

It was hard to wave a flag and celebrate the nation's government that has spent the past half-year speed-running every fucking thing that provoked the white guys who mattered in the British colonies to piss and moan about their government to the point of rebellion:

"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation."

What the actual fuck has Donnie Dollhands done that his counterpart George of Hanover didn't? Substituted his immigration Gestapo for "foreign Mercenaries"? Yeah, right.

Is there any particular reason that anyone not completely in the basket of deplorables would WANT to be part of that shit? The 1776 crowd would have rebel against his ochre-colored ass as they did against the king of their day, and we owe it to them to rebel against the modern version of German George.

Fuck that 1776 noise; there's an old school 1789 solution to King Trump, and rather than bands and fireworks, using it on him and a whole bunch of the crowd of MAGAts clustered around his golden throne seems like a much more joyous use of the day we mark the founding of this nation.

Because the country I served, the country I believe in, is the mirror image of the white man's neighborhood Trump and his the Trumpers believe in.

It's the one where anyone can be "American". No matter who they are, no matter where they were born, no matter what language they speak. All that's required is a fervent, passionate belief in the ideals of this country; equal justice under law, the republic that the foundational documents - ALL the documents, including the important changes wrought by the Civil War amendments that define the Second Republic from the slave-holding First - promises.

Ken ("Popehat") White has a moving story about what that means - or meant - in practice:  

"The people I despise, and who despise me, believe America’s values and goals are blood, soil, swagger, and an insipid and arrogant conformity. They are the values of bullies and their sycophants. They may prevail. There’s no promise they will not...I am just more acutely aware that doing better will not be easy and may not be peaceful, and that doing it will require fighting people just as dedicated to low and ugly values, and that we may lose.

America’s history is the story of people — like those Filipino-Americans — who had much less and faced far more daunting circumstances and kept fighting. It would be shameful to give up that fight. The bullies may win, but they will not win by default, and they will not win without a bloody battle."

The thing is...I'm old. Dying slowly of a neurological disease. Tired of "fighting", fighting what is now the weight of my own government. Tired of re-fighting battles I thought we'd won and settled long ago.

Last night sort of reminded me how ridiculous this nonsense all is.

Several years ago the City of Portland passed an ordnance prohibiting personal fireworks during the summer. It made total sense; we're highly flammable in July. Turning thousands of knuckleheads loose with pyro? NOT a good idea.

For years the family used to go north to Washington - where "projectile"-type fireworks were legal - and haul back a load of mortars, rockets, and roman candles to fire off in the blacktop playground behind Astor Elementary School. 

It was a critical part of "fun" on the 4th, history and patriotism be damned. It was all about the pyro.

But the City was right; it's a damn dumb idea. So they banned it.

Well, turns out that here, in the neighborhood around my new condo in the Lower Depths of St. Johns, we laugh at your silly fireworks ban, Portland. The firefight was in full swing moments after sundown.

At which point, sitting out on my porch to admire the lawlessness, I discovered two things:

1) Someone in the demo site down at the end of the street had some really BIG explosives. Either a seriously big-ass mortar or just the old "M-80" quarter-stick dynamite-type charges we used to use to blow our fingers off as kids in the Sixties. Big. Loud. I mean seriously loud.

So interspersed with the "regular" fireworks every so often there'd be this ginormous flash and BOOM!! when one of these things would go off, rattling the windows and shaking the tree branches.

And...

2) Someone else had set his car alarm, including the fucking motion detector.

Which went off every time Person #1's bombs would explode.

Which meant that all evening we were serenaded with a fusillade of smaller pyro, a massive blast, and then the whooping of the fucking Car Alarm of Freedom.

"Boom-crackle-boom-pop-pop-crackle-boom-BOOM!!!whoopwhoopwhoop!"

It that doesn't say something about the State of This Goddamn Union right now, I can't think of a better.

 

Damn it. I miss my country.

These truths

I'll have a longer rumination on Happy Treason Day, but although I didn't really pay much attention to Benito's oration at Mt. Rushmore the other day, it sounds like it was a really juicy serving of red meat to the Base. "BLM is a commie conspiracy against Good White People (probably masterminded by antifa) and we're NEVER going to surrender on our love for Treason in Defense of Slavery!"

Kreegah, Tarzan. Fucking bundolo. It's a wonder that apes aren't the only ones who understand that shit. Yeah, well, racist goobers, so not a dime's worth of difference, but, still...

What makes this intriguing is that at my stage-struck daughter's request we streamed Hamilton last night (wonderfully luminous art, sketchy history...) and the contrast couldn't be sharper between the two visions of America.

Both include a huge helping of myth and fantasy.

But the one myth is hopeful, broad, innovative, expansive, inclusive...

and the other is narrow, angry, resentful, purblind, intolerant, and vicious.

We the People have a seismic-level event this November that will determine which of those myths we embrace.

I have NO confidence that We will chose the hopeful one.

And yet...the promise of this nation, the standard We set for ourselves, regardless of how often we failed to live up to it, is a truly aspirational one. If we were the nation we say we want to be, we would, indeed, be a shining city on a hill.

But more on this subject tomorrow. Until then, enjoy my favorite Hamilton guy, George the Third, tell us about his love and longing...

Radio Check

Still here, though still without much to say. Same issues; the things that matter to me just aren't that interesting to anyone else; home, work, family, and as for the soccer I work out over at my daytime gig at Slide Rule Pass. I did enjoy the hell out of the Women's World Cup, but I know better than to try and write that one up; a lot of work and you'd get better value for your money over at The Equalizer or All White Kit...

As far as blogging goes, I'm farkling about gearing up to writing up the Battle of the Philippine Sea as a sort of send-off to my "Imperial Japan, WTF?" series. Yeah, Leyte gets all the press, but it was the Turkey Shoot that was the USN at the top of its game, that meant Game Over for the Kito Budai. I'll try and get that in later this month.

Part of the blogging roadblock is just Real Life; I've found that I don't have the burning desire to write so badly as to put off everything else I've got going on. Tonight the kiddos are upstairs playing Goat Simulator (don't ask. Seriously, there are some things that, once seen, can never be unseen...) and The Bride is reading the new Shadow Campaigns novel I bagged for her at the county library so I found some time to come downstairs - my computer is back in its old place at the basement worktable - and write.

But the other big part is just the notion of trying to talk about politics or military affairs has just really lost its grip on me. I don't know enough about the politics of places beyond the strandlines to speak sensibly and the politics of my country are, at the moment, loathsome. To me the perfect poster child for American politics is The Donald.

And even here I can't really better the Rude One in his summation of the shitshow that is Trump:

"He's like most of the other candidates rolled into one: a blithering, idiotic, climate change-denying loudmouth xenophobe who wants endless war, Christian "values" (whatever the fuck those are anymore), an economic and health care system that benefits the rich, and a big fuckin' fence with alligators or some such shit to keep out the Mexican rapists. He doesn't need to pander to the baser instincts of the primary voters. He is the living embodiment of the baser instincts of GOP primary voters. That's why he's wiping the floor with virtually every other candidate."

But I can't even find any entertainment in the idiocracy that has become the Republican Party.

Because the way our political system works we get two parties. You can try and come up with another system that produces another outcome, but the bottom line is that the U.S. first-past-the-post election setup produces two big parties instead of the lots of little ones you get in a parliamentary system.

So, given two parties it'd be nice to think that we'd have two, you know, actual parties. Organizations with smart people and thought-out policies that wanted to run a sane and healthy country.

Instead we have a bunch of fairly conservative corporatists who prefer a sort of elite, oligarchic control over the dusky masses...and a Monster Fucking Raving Loony Party of which Trump is not the ravingest fucking looney by a looooong chalk.

It's a fucking fuckstory, and what more can I say other than that..?

I've included a whole bunch of family pictures to give you an idea of what we've been doing that has kept me away from the keyboard; you get the whole spectacle of work and play, house, and kids, and pets. I've also been volunteering to help sell merch for our women's soccer team supporters group the Rose City Riveters, and help out with our friends' project to clean and paint and sell their house; here we are after a long, hot day of exterior painting:

Or pitching in at the local watering hole for soccer, Bazi Bierbrasserie. With my temporary Oregon Liquor Control Commission volunteer server credentials in hand here I am, ready to start pouring for the Women's National Team supporters...

Busy, busy, busy, that's me.

Just not here. I'm sorry.

But if you stick around I can promise you Marianas and Turkeys. This is no shit.

I will tell you one more story before I have to go.

So I go to the Thorns match on the Friday before the Fourth of July. Good match, Portland win, if you give a shit you can read all about it here. Anyway, I get in late as in late-late, nearly midnight. It's hot, damn hot as it was for nearly the entire month of June. But not hot enough to explain the expended kitchen fire extinquisher sitting on the dark front steps. Interesting, I think, and go inside.

Everyone is sleeping in the Little House. The only creatures stirring are the two expended Roman candle launchers sitting silently in the kitchen trash. Interesting, I think, before heading into the shower and the bed.

So it's not until the next morning that I find this:

My Bride explains that my son and his pal were playing in the street with the pair of fireworks they were allowed the night before the tradition of Expending All Rounds (of illegal fireworks smuggled in from Vancouver) in the paved "playground" of Astor School at the east end of Amherst Street. She wasn't sure how the fireball landed in the city strip, but she thought that one of the boys might have aimed it down and it skipped off the pavement into the grass.

Which, explosive as flash-paper after weeks of drought and days in the nineties, ignited.

This little inferno took a shovel and the extinguisher and the neighbor's hose - the lighted section was in front of the house two doors down from ours - to kill. I think my Inamorata realized that the fault was not so much in her stars or in her son but in herself for not insisting that the boyish pranks be shifted to the inflammable asphalt of the elementary school.

Missy was properly disgusted.

"I had nothing to do with this." she sniffed. "It was those boys!"

I smiled and agreed and felt thankful that all that had burned was some dead grass. And climbed into the Honda and drove away.