‘At least it’s an ethos’

Were the Capitol Hill Commandos nihilists? Or do they have an ethos?

Beats me. They didn’t appear to be granting interviews — too busy smashing cameras and/or taking selfies — but if I were to guess, it seems to me that their ideology starts and stops at Adolf Twitler.

A few clearly had an agenda, but a lot looked like dumb dogs that caught a Cadillac and didn’t know what to do with it. They sure as shit weren’t prepared to drive it.

From the collection of Chairman Bao Wao Wao.

The Weather Underground Organization had a program when it bombed the U.S. Capitol back in March 1971 — armed struggle against imperialism a la Che Guevara and Mao Zedong. Create “two, three, many Vietnams,” as Che advised.

And the WUO decidedly was not above “demands for control and power through seizures of institutions,” as the leadership explained in the 1974 political statement “Prairie Fire,” with the caveat, “Actions are more powerful when they are explained and defended.”

The WUO didn’t exactly drive their program home, either. A bunch of them wound up in the carcel or the camposanto, and a number of their former comrades in the old Students for a Democratic Society split off in other directions, as Mike Klonsky did with the October League and later, the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist); Your Humble Narrator had a brief affiliation with both organizations in the late Seventies after an undistinguished stint with the Socialist Workers Party.

But at least these organizations had an ethos, a plan, a vision, however myopic. What were (are) these new insurrectionists thinking? Give us your best guesses in comments.

The big show

Let’s not start sucking each other’s — well, you know — quite yet.

Well.

Keeping the advice of the redoubtable Winston Wolf in mind, the news out of Georgia seems … well, frankly, astonishing. Shit, I might ask for a recount, and these are my people we’re talking about here.

Next in the spotlight is what should be a routine confirmation, during a joint session of Congress, of Sleepy Joe’s victory in the Electoral College. One small step for man, one giant leap toward issuing that eviction notice effective Jan. 20.

Yet again, we acknowledge the wisdom of The Wolf.

The Turtle has many tricks up his shell, as does the Flying Monkey Caucus. Also, Adolf Twitler’s Brown Noses are in the streets, and one wonders how many more are wearing brass hats in the Pentagon.

And Mike Ha’pence, the Envelope Opener-in-Chief, is such a fence-straddling chickenshit that you will never find his feet firmly on the ground on one side of an issue.

Particularly this one. His bet was called and now he has to show his hand, which contains nothing but an envelope full of bad news for his dumb ass. He has peered timidly into the future and seen that neither Jesus nor history will treat him kindly, if indeed the Republic survives to have a history that chronicles his craven, self-serving obesiance to a dime-store dictator, and that our posterity retains enough literacy to read it.

All he can do is dance like a puppet, one final time. But to whose tune? One foot to one beat, the other to another, as per usual. No matter who’s holding his strings for this final performance on the American political stage, he will never be a real boy.

He’s gonna have one helluva nose, though. Stained a deep and odiferous brown, too.

• Update: Well, Adolf’s Brown Noses aren’t in the streets anymore. They’re in the Capitol. Naturally, they didn’t check their white privilege at the door. These dudes were Black, they’d have been dead 10 times already. I also seem to recall a rather robust response to Vietnam War protests in the vicinity. But them was hippies, so, whatevs.

The lighter side of the news, from
the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

• Update No. 2: Mother Times calls it for Ossoff in Georgia, which means the Donks have the Senate. Storm that, motherfuckers.

• Update No. 3: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) tweets that she’s drawing up articles of impeachment against Adolf Twitler. Sounds a bit like horses and barn doors, but there has been discussion of this elsewhere as a prophylactic measure to keep the stubby ginger dick from rising again. The National Association of Manufacturers, meanwhile, called on Ha’Pence to A25 his boss’s fat ass. Yeah, good luck with that. He’s already soiled his armor.

• Update No. 4: Charlie Pierce has gone full “throw the rascal out.” And as usual, I agree. Adolf Twiter goes out on his fat ass, Ha’Pence gets to be president for a few days, and then the shovels and mops come out. Sure, maybe he wants to get tossed out, and then have Ha’Pence pardon him, a la Nixon-Ford. Still, sez Chazbo: “Leaving him in place even for an hour would be the final dereliction of duty, and we have had far too many of those. Force him out. Do it now. Complicity is its own dark reward.”

Flail away*

“The Nimitz did what?”

The trouble with having a certifiable loon as your ostensible “commander in chief” is that the other loons are liable to mistake his noise for signal.

“Say, Ebrahim, where’s the Great Satan’s aircraft carrier going? Who the hell is calling the shots over there, anyway?”

“The only shot this one cares about is the seven-iron he just shanked into the water hazard, your Supreme Leadership.”

* Apologies to Randy Newman.

Happy New Year

The sun prepares its New Year’s debut over the Sandias.

The starter’s pistol cracks, the flag drops … and they’re off! Another lap around the calendar has begun.

Herself and I called it quits long before midnight after a New Year’s Eve feast of Alaskan salmon (h/t Matt Wiebe), roasted potatoes, steamed broccoli, and salad. French rosé for her; fake St. Pauli Girl for me, my Clausthaler Dry Hopped being unavailable anywhere at any price.

The celebratory pyrotechnics likewise beat the clock. I was hearing fireworks and gunfire 8-ish as I unplugged the holiday lights. Burqueños do love their pistolas, and will discharge them at the sky if no other, better target presents itself.

This continued into the night until a final, furious fusillade awakened me and 2021 more or less simultaneously.

This morning I checked the property for bodies, but found nothing, no shell casings, no blood trails. Herself inspected the Vault and found a deposit of $1,200 from Uncle Sammy, that senile, profligate, racist old fool. We are not wealthy, but neither are we desperate, and so we will be redirecting these funds to someone who is. What a colossal waste of time and energy. Somebody could have been spending this cash months ago on food, rent, cartuchos, whatever.

Meanwhile, the Sedition Party is gearing up for more mischief at King’s Landing. This is the thing that never changes with the calendar. In power, they can’t govern, won’t even try. Out of power, they see to it that nobody else can govern, either. This is why small businesses close and public works crumble and people like us get free money.

And yet every New Year’s Eve the People spill out into the streets, shooting into the heavens. One wonders when they might choose some other targets of opportunity down here on earth.

While we wait, anybody making New Year’s resolutions that don’t involve overthrowing the government? Sound off in comments.

More, late*

A little light and a lot more tunnel.

“Pandemic Deal by Congress Provides Economic Relief, for Now,” reports The New York Times.

But it’s too little, too late, and perhaps the last of Uncle Sammy’s pennies in the ol’ tin cup for a while, adds The Old Grey Hoor, in an analysis by Ben Casselman and Jim Tankersley.

The injection of money comes months too late for tens of thousands of failed businesses, however, and it may not be enough to sustain unemployed workers until the labor market rebounds. Moreover, it could be the last help from Washington the economy gets anytime soon.

Call me cynical, but I think we need some brighter bulbs on this job.

*Apologies to Chris in the Morning.