Finding A Balance:
I have, of late, been recording and publishing short, monologue videos on my YouTube channel, Artlife Enterprises. They’ve all been political in nature, although various parts of some venture outside of that framework.
I enjoy making them, and I decided at the start of the series, that I would keep them pretty raw. I don’t really do any prep work for them, except that I speak about an issue that has been occupying my mind over the last day or so prior to sitting down to record. This insures that each monologue is, essentially, a focused stream of consciousness as I explore the issue. I don’t edit them at all. I publish them complete, as they were recorded.
I have published one video that was of me reading a piece I had written in September, 2020, titled “An Open Letter to My Fellow Progressives.” I’m not sure what I think about that endeavor. I looked at the paper more than I had initially thought I would, and that really distracted me from focusing on the camera in order to accentuate the effect of the spoken word.
There’s another piece I wrote that I’d like to place on video, primarily because I believe it lends itself more to the universe of the dramatic recitation than does An Open Letter. This other piece is titled “Conversation 1: The Evangelical Virus.” I’m not going to say any more about it, because I think It’s a damn good read. You can find it on my blog site: http://www.overwhelmingweirdness.com. Oh, yeah, if you’re reading this, then you’re already there.
The problem I’m trying to avoid is of allowing the convenience of speaking a piece and posting it, to completely marginalize my writing. This is a real issue for me and, I’m fairly certain, other writers in this crazy 21st Century. What I have to remember is that writing is an art like speaking can never be, just as speaking is an art that writing can never be. It is the same, and yet it is different, and the painting of images for a reader is an incredibly rewarding accomplishment. Writing offers the writer an immense level of freedom of influence over what the audience experiences, because there is no visual stimulus to distract from the words. The writers palette has letters and punctuation instead of a spectrum of colors, and the brush strokes of the words are as varied as those of all of the artists ever to have wielded a brush.
Long story short, I think I should write out what will inevitably be a variation on the piece I recorded and published on November 10th, 2020. The YouTube piece is titled: Monolugue 7: Concession. Here is my written interpretation of the issue:
Concession 1.0:
The point of this short essay is the very real possibility, no, probability, that donald trump will not concede this election. He will not concede it today, tomorrow, next week, or probably ever. That, my dear readers, is a very serious matter. This country has the longest history of any country on planet earth of peaceful transfers of power from one administration to the next, but donald trump plans to upset that history by throwing the aberration of his toxic presidency into the fold of this most precious tradition.
What makes this situation even worse, is that we all know why trump refuses to recognize the fact that the American people fired him. He is scrambling to hold on to the presidency, not for some higher purpose of moving this country toward the ever-elusive more perfect union, but for his own self-aggrandizement. His daughter said, when asked about contacts with Russian Security Service personnel by the trump campaign in 2016, “We trumps play to win.” It doesn’t matter to the trumps what the trumps do to other people when they “play to win,” but it matters to us.
Planet Earth to trump: when you invite the assistance of this country’s primary adversary to help you gain power in this country, and when you demonstrate such an insane level of selfishness in the face of a pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of American citizens in a short six months, and when you prove yourself, every day, to be one of the most morally depraved of all human beings, we’re going to fire your ass.
Hey, trump, you’re fired.
Several weeks ago, in early October, 2020, I was engaged in a discussion about trump with one of his supporters, and I made the point that he has to know that trump doesn’t give a damn about anybody in this world, but himself. To my amazement, he replied that yes, he knew that. I was stunned, flabbergasted, and said rather loudly and quite forcefully: “We cannot have someone like that in the White House! Don’t you understand that? We cannot have someone occupying the office of president of the United States [by this time I’m yelling] that doesn’t give a shit about anybody but himself! What The Fuck!!!!!!!???????” Luckily, we were on a golf course, so anyone other than our group of four was at least a hundred yards away
So here is a pretty succinct synopsis of our situation: We have one of the most loathsome human beings ever to exist, who has been masquerading as the president of the United States for almost four years, lose an election, badly. However, he refuses to concede the election he lost, and now sets about to do the following: He fires major members of his cabinet — specifically, the one who is tied like no other to the US military — for reasons we are yet to find out, and threatens anyone working in the White House that if he finds out that they’re looking for another job, he’ll fire that person immediately, effective immediately. He also instructs his Ernst Roehm, William Barr, to issue a memo asserting federal prerogative where it does not exist; investigating assertions of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. This issue lies with the states until, and only until, such time as federal intervention is warranted, and that decision, too, lies with the states.
This may very well be the most dangerous time in the history of this country. All you have to do is reread the paragraph above to understand where we are today. The danger is not that donald trump’s fantastical attempt to hold on to the presidency will succeed, it won’t.
“Sorry, “the donald,” we know that when you were a ‘private’ citizen, you could run businesses into the ground over and over, and over again, and the American taxpayers would bail you out through the bankruptcy process, but you can only go bankrupt once as president. After that, well, we just won’t allow you to be that unbelievably selfish and incompetent and hope to not be fired at the first possible moment. Oh, yeah, and in case you didn’t get the memo, that moment came on November 3rd, 2020. Hey trump, you’re fired! Now clean out your desk and get out! Oh yeah, you’re going to have to leave that computer with all of your secret Putin shit on it. That’s probably going to be exhibit A, B, or C at your trial.”
The real danger at this point is what this situation will do to the government of this country. The only thing donald trump as left to ruin, before he is removed from the presidency, is the government…and here he goes. He has already set about doing that in any possible manner he can.
donald trump’s refusal to accept the fair and equitable results of this election means, since we are all familiar with his complete lack of character, that he will eventually result to extra-legal means to retain power. I once heard the following: “There is nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose, nothing to live for, and nothing to prove.” We are witnessing the truth of that statement in donald trump’s actions regarding his defeat by, in the end, the thing he hates the most: the ballot box.
In addition to this, I believe he is considering an “only count the votes for me” tour of rallies around the country. What can you say about something like that? Nothing. All you have to do is take a step back for a second and look at the complete disregard for the boundaries of truth trump would maintain when he was still campaigning, to imagine what he will do or say now that he has lost the election. I physically shudder when I think of the depths of moral desolation to which trump will hurry in order to hold onto power he does not own.
Folks, this is deadly serious, it really is, and how we handle it will say all that will ever need to be said about the character of this country. How will we absorb this spasm of insufferably poor governance and selfishness into the larger framework of this nation’s quest for a more perfect union? That, in the end, is the most important question which this episode in American history will ever require us to answer.
The effects of the trump administration on our republic are impossible to foresee at the moment, but they will have long-term impacts on the social and political landscape of this country for decades, if not generations, to come. Believe it or not, I believe that its effects will be, for the most part, positive. The presidency of donald trump will stand forever as a testament to the horrific things that can happen to any democracy when people do not participate in the governing process.
A break in time:
Let me mention that I started writing this piece four days ago, but my work schedule has placed a damper on the time I’ve had to my sit at the computer to finish the piece.
Within this four days, we have heard nothing from president trump…about anything. Think about that: Aside from firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper (in order, as it appears, to place his loyalists in top positions in the Department of Defense), and appearing like a god to further incite his supporters at their “Million MAGA March” in Washington, D.C. today, we have heard almost nothing from donald trump. We’ve heard nothing about the corona virus and its mounting toll of human life and labor across this country and, indeed, the world. We’ve heard nothing about the election, and the absolutely humiliating, and embarrassing rebuke he suffered at the hands of the American People. We’ve heard nothing about a hundred other news stories of both large and petty corruptions that make up both donald trump’s administration, and his character.
I have to add how insanely telling it is that these people at their Million MAGA March today were out there literally fighting for him in the streets, and he has his motorcade pass them so that he can wave at them as he rides off to a flight to play a round of golf at one of his private clubs. He didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow down. He doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself and they know it, but they don’t care, because they worship him.
That’s just weird.
My dear readers, this is very serious, and we cannot, as a nation, tolerate this level of mental instability in the president of the United States. I’m going to repeat that: “We cannot, as a nation, tolerate this level of mental instability in the president of the United States.” We can’t have it.
All of that being said, I have to admit that this silence of donald trump has become a special time of joy that we haven’t had for almost four years. Think about that, we’re almost at ten days after November 3rd, and the silence from donald trump brings a sense of elation to everyone. I’ll bet even a large number of his hard-core devotees are kind of like: “Wo, I feel like I’ve been under a spell!” This means, of course, that we’re going to hear from him soon, in order to keep the spice flowing. “The spice must flow.”
However, aside from all of the side-show joy this silence has provided us, we have to focus on the damage donald trump is trying inflict on our republic. That may be the worst part. donald trump is trying to inflict as much damage as he can upon this republic, and American society in general, before he is removed from office. We also have to remember that donald trump is plotting and planning every second he’s not sulking, so realistically, about two thirds of his waking hours are spent plotting.
To paraphrase what I stated earlier in this piece; How we absorb the effects of the plot, my fellow people who live under the constitutional protections of this republic, will say all that will ever need to be said about the character of America and Americans in general.
Prepare in peace, and with a sense of love for all people. The test is almost upon us.
Peace and love to all,
Niemand