photo credit: Ms. Gonzo
“America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil. Before the settlers, before the Indians… the evil was there… waiting.” — William S. Burroughs
by Kyle K. Mann
It seems to me that the USA has been mad – stark barking mad – for decades now. Since Vietnam, I guess, but perhaps before that. Maybe always, actually.
The madness has a dark, twisted quality to it, rather like a really long and spectacularly bad LSD trip, a feeling that nothing is right, nor will it ever be. That’s a downer, and most people don’t want to contemplate such things.
Still, there it is. As of late November, 2016, things have gotten way beyond weird in The States, and it’s not at all clear how the political situation will settle down, or when. In just the past few days, these events have occurred:
1) After a genuinely bizarre and unexpected win by Donald Trump, a next-day concession speech by purple-clad Hillary Clinton, and a statement by President Obama calling for an “orderly transition,” there have been increasingly controversial statements by “alternative media” figures that Trump stole the election.
2) Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has called for vote recounts in three states, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. After initial silence, the “Clinton campaign” (to use the New York Times term) has decided to “participate” while saying it doesn’t see much chance of flipping any of the three states, but wants to assure Clinton voters that Russia hasn’t flipped them.
3) President Obama’s administration says the election is “free of interference,” according to the NYT.
4) Primary candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, who arguably had his Democratic nomination stolen by Hillary Clinton, according to the WikiLeaks emails, says on ABC’s “This Week” that the recount is “not a big deal.”
5) President-elect Trump, communicating by “tweetstorm” (CBS News) claims he would have won the popular vote, which he has officially lost by over two million, had it not been for “millions of people who voted illegally.” Really? Trump also criticizes the vote recount, which to this observer seems strange. Millions? Doesn’t that call for a recount?
Then there’s the Blame-Russia campaign, which, supposedly with the aid of “fake news,” helped bamboozle decent God-fearing voters into voting for Trump. The Washington Post has published a list of a couple hundred such websites, including AntiWar.com, Truthout, Truthdig and CounterPunch. Even Consortium News. (Not on the list is Gonzo Today. What a horrendous insult.)
Which leaves us where?
In between reading, praising and then contrastingly hostile obituaries of Fidel Castro, and reluctantly monitoring the ongoing fighting in Mosul (Iraq) and Yemen, and suddenly wondering about the upcoming last season’s episode of ‘Poldark,’ I’m as puzzled as the next world resident. A month ago I thought I’d be writing calls to protest against Saint Hillary now, not this current inexplicable jumble of grotesque facts that don’t compute.
So, although my predictive abilities appear to be of dubious value, along with the many other, more established pundits, I’ll say this: it appears the Deep State is in disarray.
Ah, you say. And what is the Deep State?
The short answer: The people running the show from behind the curtain, pulling the levers, profiting from the madness. Intelligence agencies, corporate CEO’s, bureaucrats, super-secret underground moguls…
Yeah, but that’s conspiracy theory stuff, you say.
Is it?
How about South Korea, where hundreds of thousands of protesters choke the streets of the capital, demanding the resignation of the nation’s first female president, on grounds she is a corrupt lawbreaker. And a member of the “Eight Fairies” cult. And there’s a mysterious woman companion currently hiding out in Germany. What a mess. And there is North Korea, soon to join China and Russia as a country that could nuke the USA. This gets beyond weird to unthinkable. What’s next? How about a reality shift? Ok, hang on…
If there are alien critters or dimensional beings running the show, that might explain some of this. Though a mix of aliens/dimensional beings and the Deep State might explain it even more. But until the day of Alien Disclosure, we won’t have much contemporary official confirmation.
In any case, we mostly all appear to be edging towards madness in our personal views. People are saying things I can’t believe on FaceBook. It’s shocking, distasteful. Some of them are longtime friends and family. Some of their posts I don’t want to think about, much less write about. Troubling.
In search of inner peace, I walked on Topanga Beach today. Brisk it was, for late November, but beautiful. Fresh clean air off the Pacific. Sunlight sparkling on the surf.
Inspired, I drove on to the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine over on Sunset, a few blocks from the Pacific Coast Highway. Gandhi’s ashes, or a portion, are interred there. For thirty years I’ve been dropping in occasionally. Always feel healed when at the resting place of the great spirit.
I set off on the path but soon came to a fence. Closed for repairs, it said.
Well. What a sign.
So, the drive home, and this way beyond weird act of writing. Hmm.
Maybe we’ll make that Fake News list this time.
