Business and Government--Inverted

In the United States, “we” have given enormous power to our businesses. If you're a Republican, you feel this is a great and good thing. If you're a Democrat, probably not so much.

We is in quotations because no one asked us—the American public—if we were okay with that. It was just done. Case in point was the 2010 Citizens United decision, which had nothing to do with citizens or unity.

Ostensibly about campaign finance reform, it served to weaponize Republican's biggest advantage (money) and removed any and all constraints from corporate campaign donations. This because in the words of our friends across the aisle, corporations are people, too.

And that being the case, deserve their first amendment rights, also. 

Sniff.

This not only further entrenched the culture of special interests and lobbyists in Washington DC, but made running for office a whole helluva lot more expensive. You are no doubt shocked to learn a Republican-majority in the Supreme Court found in its favor.

As the U.S. economy has moved from one based in manufacturing to one based in more nebulous things like buying and selling stuff like debt and data, it has moved out of brick and mortar structures into cyberspace.

It has changed more-quickly than the government can adapt to it. Tech entities like Apple, Google, Twitter and Facebook frequently operate in an unregulated environment that often leaves them to (gulp) police themselves.

Which brings us to Facebook's suspension of Donald Trump.

I'm convinced one-hundred percent of us know Donald Trump is a shit. But only fifty-percent of us will admit it because denying for Donnie has become a cause. A declaration of contempt for people who see things differently than you do.

For those of us not in the cult, Donald Trump is a cancerous skin lesion. Left untreated, it will envelop the body and kill it. And unlike most cancers, the best and most-effective treatment for this strain is silence.

Unplugging the lie machine that seeks only its own affirmation even at the expense of a nation. 

Republicans can yammer about freedom of speech til they turn blue. (Heh heh heh.) Donnie can cry “It's rigged!” til his BMI is appropriate to his age, weight and height. But as they so often do, Republican's own actions hollow-out even their most-pointed accusations until they're nothing but empty shells.

Much like Republicans themselves.

Until government catches up, we are most fortunate to have tech entities like Facebook that realize the greater threat, and have acted accordingly. Ironic, isn't it?

The Other Side of the Asile

If you're like me, you might have winced ever so slightly when Republicans accused Twitter and Facebook (and by extension—“cancel culture” Democrats) of denying Donald Trump his First Amendment rights. His right to free speech.

Of censorship and banishment.

And um, I agree. In the tiniest, most-literal sense imaginable.

But this is Donald Trump. The cancer who stood in front of a mob of right-wing nut jobs and exhorted them to do his bidding for him. To march on the Capitol building and prevent the “stolen” election results from being etched in stone—by any and all means necessary.

But like so much of what emanates from the mouths of Republicans, we needn't have worried.

Republicans have taken it upon themselves to administer their own brand of censorship by their efforts to remove, silence or, at the very least, censure those in elected office who didn't march in lockstep with president 45 on everything.

Up to and including sedition.

Sadly, the poster child for this foolishness is Liz Cheney, a congresswoman from Wyoming. Her words, more than any other, articulated the dismay so many of us felt after the events of January sixth.

She said Donald Trump had betrayed the oath he took when he became president. Yes. Betrayed. As in cheating a spouse. Jilting a lover. The word carries a powerful human component of hurt and loss. Of being lied to. It is the perfect choice.

If that weren't enough, Cheney had the temerity to vote for impeachment of Crazy Don, an act which didn't escape the notice of the Wyoming GOP. They voted 66 to 8 to censure her.

Want to talk to me again about the First Amendment, gentlemen? Oh that's right. Only Democrats censor people. You're just ensuring party homogeny.

Sore loser Darin Smith even went so far as to publicly answer the question 'You want to know how far down the Trump rabbit hole I am?' by speaking thusly:

“We need to honor President Trump. All President Trump did was call for a peaceful assembly and protest for a fair and audited election.”

Which he got—weeks before this charade.

I'm trying to imagine the Republican response had it been President Obama speaking Trump's words in front of a crowd of BLM supporters. Telling them “You need to fight like hell! Because if you don't, you're not going to have a country any more!” Or having Obama's faux Giuliani suggest “Let's have trial by combat!”

Yes, Republicans would be falling all over themselves to hang Obama from a tree. (Figuratively speaking, of course.)

But coming from Trump and addressed to an angry, roiling mob armed with guns, ammunition, helmets, bullet proof vests, police shields and filled with a soon-to-be-acted-on murderous rage?

Nah. It's just Don being Don. 

If you say so. 

Acquiescence

You never know which match is going to start the fire.

Take China. If there's one thing I liked about Donald Trump (and there was only one, trust me), it was his willingness to call out China.

Long the manipulator of its citizenry, ignorer of trademarks and an all-star violator of human rights, China has an astonishing ability to hypnotize its trading partners into believing it is a trustworthy and egalitarian one.

China is the con man who can bedazzle the world into believing, well, practically anything. Like all successful cons, it uses the greed of its marks to compromise them.

And when hypnosis doesn't work, there is always the bludgeon of cheap labor and those 1.3 billion potential consumers.

We pretended Google wasn't kowtowing to China's oppressive leadership and constructing search engines that prevented Chinese citizens from reading anything their government didn't want them to read, making Google one of the world's most powerful and wealthiest corporations in the process.

We ignored it when Beijing suppressed Olympic coverage it didn't deem consistent with its public relations campaigns, and pretended that Beijing's air quality was great, its citizenry free to express any degree of dissatisfaction with their government they wished and that Tiananmen Square never, ever happened because, after all, no one could find proof of it on a Google search.

Gosh. I could go on and on and on.

In our corporation's desire to make ever-greater amounts of money, and in our own unfortunate acceptance of it, we have shown our true colors. Yeah, democracy is nice and everything, but more than that we prize abundant and inexpensive labor. Corpulent profit margins. Expanding market share. Wealth creation with ceilings like the Sistine Chapel.

That's what we really want.

And China is only too happy to supply it—as long as we turn a blind eye to things like currency manipulation, intellectual property abuses and the Muslim internment camps in western China.

The very corporations who have gone hand-in-hand with Republican policies that diminished the American worker (and subsequently, their ability to consume) now turn to China to keep those bonus checks rolling into the executive suite.

And so it goes.

In our greed, we have ceded the manufacture of practically everything to China. This includes our prescription drugs and the weaponry which constitutes our national defense. The geniuses in the corporate penthouse have eagerly unzipped their flys and allowed China to grab their testes and give them a good twist in exchange for ever larger stacks o' cash.

And who doesn't think that's a good thing?

But every now and then there's someone who didn't read the memo.

I have only to point to Houston Rocket's GM Daryl Morey, whose earnest tweet in support of the Hong Kong demonstrations upset the apple cart. Instead of following protocol and politely ignoring the fart in the elevator, Morey essentially asked “who farted?”

And after so many years of blind obedience, China is upset with us. Is America discovering its conscience?

NBA commissioner Adam Silver, caught between the NBA's expanding business and defending a core value of the United States, wisely choose the latter, further exacerbating the Chinese.

They are burning NBA jerseys and pulling the plug on NBA telecasts and all sorts of horrible things.

Bad America! Bad!

Perhaps. But I'm fine with it. The NBA needs money like I need an elevated cholesterol count. As a radicalized socialist (per our president), it is my opinion that our relationship with China stinks. It is nothing but a museum-worthy exhibit of our hypocrisy.

I am both shamed and highly-concerned by it.

And speaking of shame, I only wish LeBron James had an ounce or two. 

Despite his highly-publicized Twitter exchanges with President Petulant, James is as complicit as any other businessman. When faced with re-thinking his relationship with a plainly amoral government or sustaining his already-exorbitant revenue stream, he chose the latter.

You sure you're anti-Trump LeBron? 

The season doesn't start for another six days. Like James, many of us should take some time off and get a clue and calculate exactly what those low prices and our relationship with China costs.
 

Why It's Harder to Run As a Democrat

The most-illuminating moment of the first Democratic debate wasn't Kamala Harris' condemnation of Joe Biden's wildly-misunderstood comment about working with segregationists Herman Talmadge and James Eastland, but her response to a moderator's question.

After giving a lengthy explanation of her health care plan, I believe it was Savannah Guthrie who asked Harris how she proposed to pay for it.

Rising to the bait, Harris fired back. She pointedly questioned why no one asked the same of Donald Trump as he was giving away massive amounts of money to the wealthiest portions of our population.

Her reply shed light on a curious phenomenon in present day American politics: Entirely different things are expected of Republicans and Democrats.

Democrats need to bring actual ideas to the table and get buy-in from a bewilderingly diverse electorate. 

Republicans only need to appeal to gun totin' white guys, rich white guys and angry white guys who essentially hate anyone who isn't just like them, be it because of genitalia, country of origin, political belief, sexual orientation or religion.

Republicans need only to bellow louder than the candidate next to them to gain approval. It's a game called How conservative are you?, and the more obnoxious the answer the better.

Aided and abetted by Supreme Court-approved gerrymandering, it's no wonder defectives like Dick Cheney and Donald Trump assumed the presidency. (Oh—you thought George W. Bush was president? Awww. That's cute.) 

For a Republican, acting like the loudest drunk in the bar is a highly-effective campaign strategy.

As he works to undo the damage his feckless trade negotiations with China have wrought and publicly thumbs his nose at concern over Russia's interference in our elections, the Trump-whore tweets.

Yes, besides being the biggest dick in the room, Trump's most consistent personality trait is his Twitter addiction.

As if anyone were interested, Donald weighed-in with his thoughts on the Democratic debate. Among his profundities were “Boring!” and the incredibly ironic “How about taking care of American Citizens (sic) first!?”

Yes, the same guy who engineered the enormous giveaway to the one-percent and its corporations and routinely scales back work place, environmental and economic protections is now worried about American Citizens (sic).

Hmmm. Perhaps the error is ours that we haven't pressed Donald on his definition of Citizens (sic).

So while we tolerate things from Donald Trump even the staunchest of Democrats would have questioned had they originated with Barack Obama, we make Democrats stronger and weaken Republicans when we hold Dems to a higher standard.

Taking the high road inevitably means working at a higher elevation, and as any sentient being understands, the more-challenging the work-out environment the better the results.

We will use that muscle and kick Republican ass in 2020.

The Tyranny of Social Media

It's an amazing bit of confluence, really. That on the thirtieth anniversary of James Hansen's press conference confirming the existence of global warming our latest and perhaps most-puerile example of overheated social media outrage should emerge.

First, let me be clear: I am not a fan of social media. It amplifies our worst characteristics and encourages our most anti-social impulses as it places thoughtless, knee-jerk rants from borderline lunatics alongside sober opinions and vetted facts and confers legitimacy upon each.

Go ahead. Call me a snob. Call me pretentious. Call me someone who thinks than he's better than everyone else. But here's the thing: I don't offer opinions and present them as facts. And when facts are presented, they're researched to ensure accuracy.

In other words, I am not Pete Gaines.

For those of you who don't know, Pete Gaines possesses an otherworldly ability to discern one's moral fiber simply by gazing at their license plate. Gaines' additional talents are put on display when he simultaneously acts as prosecutor, judge and jury and posts to social media the results of his exhaustive investigations.

Take the poor sap who was motoring along in a Tesla, his car unfortunate enough to bear a four-digit license plate. While the rest of us would have continued along, aiding and abetting this heinous criminal in happy ignorance, Pete Gaines knew better.

Because he is Pete Gaines. And we're not.

He just knew there was a white supremacist within. A white supremacist who needed to be called-out and harassed. Fortunately for Illinois taxpayers, Gaines could circumvent the twin inconveniences of law enforcement and our judicial system simply by tweeting his revelation worldwide:

Hey @ILSecOfState why do you allow Nazis to get Nazi slogans on their Tesla's personalized license plates?  

The denizens of the digital landscape (mostly unschooled in the art of critical thinking) could then devour the bait provided by Gaines and excrete their comments in kind. Among the considered remarks: “If you see this car in Illinois burn it.” “Bust his windows and slash his tires.”

Good ideas, all. And thanks for not letting the complete absence of facts and proof dissuade you. Because the fact that it appeared on Twitter is proof-enough, isn't it? You, like, have to prove everything you tweet, right?

If it even matters, it was later revealed the Tesla owner had never been, was not currently nor did he plan to be a white supremacist at any point in the future. But the damage was done. The story had crested. 

They're only facts, right?

Most importantly, the lizard-brained trolls who inhabit social media and fancy themselves as both the arbitrators and guardians of public morality even as they help to destroy it got to spew.

Sharing a half-baked conspiracy theory based on a decades-old fashion with the urgency of ISIS insurgents parading up your driveway is massively irresponsible. It makes you as spiteful and as paranoid as the people you purport to abhor.

I forget: who said we become what we hate?

Anyway, I think I finally understand how Donald Trump was elected. And why the massive ice sheets in Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic are melting.

God help us.

The Cold, Unvarnished Truth

This is a distinctly un-Christian thought, but every morning I wake-up hoping our president has been found dead on the floor of a White House bathroom, a half-finished tweet sitting forlornly on his phone. 

He is a repugnant man, the product of unending privilege and good fortune. He is the nation's very own Little Lord Fauntleroy, the unhappy and bored scion of wealth who desperately seeks happiness in ever-increasing amounts of that which no longer satisfies him: money, status and power.

Failing that, he has turned to torturing ants on the sidewalk with a magnifying glass.

As a member of the ninety-nine percent, it is desperately hard not to feel like a Jew watching the Nazis come to power.

Fuck you Donald Trump. 

May you rot in the worst hell of your imagination.   

Free Advice (And a Business Opportunity) for Our President!

Dear President Trump,

As a caring, feeling American, it pains me to see you twist in the wind as you refuse to acknowledge the protocols of your position and instead pretend the White House is just another boardroom in the Trump business empire.

You are a CEO. And a very wealthy man. You aren't used to having people tell you what to do. Hell, the closest you ever got to a cabinet before reaching 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was when you asked the maid to fetch you a Twinkie. 

Because you are such a wealthy and powerful man, people attempt to curry favor with you. This happens so often that you have come to expect it. In fact, you're put-off when it doesn't happen. When was the last time you picked-up a check or reached for your wallet, anyway? 

(This is probably a good thing, because I imagine it's quite heavy. And as America's oldest-ever president you aren't as limber—or as strong—as you used to be, are you?)

So. Like I said, I'm an American who cares. So I'm going to celebrate the Fourth of July by offering my president (that's you) some free advice. Don't even think of reaching for your wallet (not that you ever would).

In the restless, dark nights of your presidency, you Tweet about witch hunts and fake news and how nobody loves you. I don't think it's stretching the truth to say that since becoming president, every day must seem like Halloween. Grotesque and horrible days full of people who don't bow and scrape like employees, unwilling to display the blind obedience you have come to feel is your birthright.

That's rough.

Okay, Mr. President, put the phone down. I know—the ADHD is kicking in. I'll get to the point.

Mr, President, the point is this. If you're tired of witch hunts have you ever considered not being a witch? Have you considered adapting to the office instead of petulantly demanding that it adapt to you?

Have you considered growing up?

Have you considered not sharing every single thought that passes between your ears? Do you realize it was the so-called fake media who informed me last November that you would be my next president?

Is that fake news? And if so, does it mean you're not?

Have you considered that for over two-hundred years this country has survived very well without you?

As hard as it is to imagine Mr. President, some things are bigger than you. Like the office you inhabit. In fact, it's even bigger than your child-like sense of self-importance.

Yes Mr. President, once upon a time your father called you son. But that doesn't mean the planet revolves around you.

Finally, I'd like to get to that business opportunity I spoke of. Don't worry—no contracts or handshakes are expressed or implied.

Have you ever considered starting-up a winery? Because I think you'd be a natural. I mean, five months into your presidency, it couldn't be more clear that you and wine go together like shit and stink.

I even have a name: The Trump Whinery.

Just sayin', Mr. President. Enjoy your Fourth.

Best Regards,

La Piazza Gancio

The 140 Carat Diamond

I'm not a fan of Twitter. Never have been.

Pandering to America's collective ADHD mentality seems just a step or two removed from Wall Street traders dabbling in prescription drugs. As destructive to our brittle literacy as mobile texting devices are to vehicular safety.

A one-hundred and forty character limit? Really?

Why not demand that oil paintings be done on 5” x 5” canvases? Or that symphonies be no more than two minutes long? How about limiting writers to just one-third of their native tongue's vocabulary?

Ceilings on expression never appealed to me. Especially when they concern the written word. It's censorship made seductive because it carries the new car smell of freshly-hatched technology.

So it was with some surprise that I found myself fist-pumping the air after reading a tweet shared by Eric Zorn, he of the Chicago Tribune and the highly worthwhile Change of Subject column. Zorn uncovered a gentleman by the name of Andrew Bradley, who tweets as Betty Bowers.

With a concision and articulation that rivals great poetry, Bradley crystallized the Republican dichotomy found in their confusing and contradictory stands on religion, abortion and gay marriage with the following:

“Religious freedom means no American can be forced to deliver a wedding cake—just a rapist's baby.”

Okay. So maybe I was wrong. Some folks can say a lot with a few words. 

But not me. I need a picture. Or a thousand words.

The Wrong Men

No one enjoys a good, old-fashioned protest more than I. People not only getting angry, but getting involved and organizing and devoting time to the expression of that discontent is at the very heart of my definition of democracy.

We the people countering a war, Wall Street greed or police brutality forcefully but peacefully is such a powerful thing. I mean, Twitter rants are wonderful, but they're just not the same.

But protests can be misdirected and ill-informed just as often as they're consciousness-raising, life-changing events. Case in point would be the Seattle chapter of Black Lives Matter interrupting a small public get-together celebrating Social Security and Medicare.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders unwittingly became the target of these passionate—but misguided—protesters when they took the stage and demanded those in attendance hold Sanders accountable for police brutality and gentrification and the disparity of Seattle's public schools.

Perhaps they had confused Sanders with Baltimore police chief Anthony Batts or some generic law and order, right-wing Republican. But publicly harassing Sanders on the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown's death and demanding that he be held accountable?

Wow. Just wow. Guess all us white folk look alike.

If I was only mildly supportive of Black Lives Matter before this event, you can imagine my enthusiasm afterwards. Sorry, but I am not convinced that each and every police shooting of a black person is unjustified or the act of a runaway law enforcement agency drunk on its own authority.

Yes, there is a great deal wrong with the relationship between law enforcement and African-Americans, and only a moron would say otherwise. Yes, it definitely needs an infusion of understanding and mutual respect.

But I would like to see the folk who constitute Black Lives Matter march through the ghetto with their message and confront the gang-bangers, drug dealers and garden variety thugs who kill young black men at a rate that dwarfs that of the police.

Just for starters, I would like to see a gun-toting gang-banger informed that black lives matter. Then we can move on to law enforcement.

People, let's be clear: Michael Brown is not a martyr. And Bernie Sanders is not your enemy.

It's All About Me

About two months ago, I wrote something called It’s All About You. In it, I listed the ten posts most-often visited by you, the loyal readers of The Square Peg.

Now, in It’s All About Me, I have done something a little different. I have listed my favorite posts.

But first a little background:

When I first shared my singular brand of humor, cynicism and social commentary on MySpace sometime in 2006, I was immediately celebrated for my keen insight. I was hailed as the world’s most-respected and trenchant observer of American politics and society.

I was soon dining with dignitaries; being asked for my opinion on everything from the Iraq war and campaign finance reform to Tom DeLay and the arrival of a new social media called Twitter.

I was nominated for seats on several prestigious global think tanks and signed a six-million-dollar deal to publish my memoirs.

Crap. I wasn't. And I didn't. Re-write!

OK. The less-interesting truth is I continued to post on MySpace until twitchy tech-obsessives made blogging there a challenge to my sanity. I finally cried “Uncle!” and moved to Blogger in the summer of 2009.

Stupidly, I never backed up the MySpace posts, thinking that despite every other element of MySpace changing by the minute, the blog would somehow remain in perpetuity.

The upshot was that I lost over two-hundred posts. While I didn’t mind losing most of them, there were a few—maybe ten percent—I was proud of and wanted to keep.

Which is just my roundabout and convoluted way of telling you that these are my twenty favorite posts posted on The Square Peg. (I’ve provided links if you care to investigate further.)

Should you ever find yourself climbing out of your skull from boredom, remember these are guaranteed to remove your crampons and confiscate your ice pick lest you become the next You Tube sensation.


La Piazza Gancio’s Guide to Unemployment 10/14/09 here

Got Truck? 11/4/09 here

The CEO Personality Assessment 12/7/09 here

It’s 2018. Do You Know Where Your Democracy Is? 1/29/10 here

Giving Care 3/16/10 here

New Parking Lot 6/9/10 here

Awkward 7/7/10 here

Goodbye, Sir Charlie 9/24/10 here

The Bootleg 11/16/10 here

The Milk of Human Kindness 11/23/10 here

Counter Culture, Pt. 2 12/1/10 here

Wait 12/19/10 here

I Am a Music Magnet 12/27/10 here

The Hamster Wheel 6/8/11 here

Ron Santo 12/6/11 here

Giving It Away 12/13/11 here

Oops!...I Did It Again 1/26/12 here

Shooting of the Month 8/6/12 here

Doing God’s Work 11/29/12 here

Policy 3/4/13 here