Of Memes and Men...

Image source: Facebook

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Climate Change, Existentialism, Human Rights, Politics

We were inundated with Facebook memes, videos and caricatures of Robert Mueller.

We saw him pose heroically as a Marine when he served in Vietnam.

We saw him superimposed as Sheriff Matt Dillon (played by actor James Arness) from the two-decade television series, “Gunsmoke.”

As much as I enjoy the movie theater and seeing my once comic books on the big screen, like Bill Mahr has opined, I think we're inundated with superhero movies to the point like our fixation with reality shows, we're losing our ability to use critical thinking and reasoning. It has disastrously resulted in a reality show president with demonstrable Internet Addiction (Twitter) and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (across the pond, Boris Johnson is now British Prime Minister). Of course, we give such a limited being, a caricature bereft of any respect for scientific inquiry, now having control over entities that will impact our addressing (or, ignoring) climate change and the nuclear codes.

Do you remember the good old days when we had "12 years to save the planet"? Matt McGrath, BBC Science & Environment

Spoiler alert: we don't.

This country has been surprised by the way the world looks now
They don't know if they want to be Matt Dillon or Bob Dylan
They don't know if they want to be diplomats ...
Or continue the same policy of nuclear nightmare diplomacy
John Foster Dulles ain't nothing but the name of an airport now

The idea concerns the fact that this country wants nostalgia
They want to go back as far as they can ...
Even if it's only as far as last week
Not to face now or tomorrow, but to face backwards

And yesterday was the day of our cinema heroes
Riding to the rescue at the last possible moment
The day of the man in the white hat or the man on the white horse ...
Or, the man who always came to save America at the last moment
Someone always came to save America at the last moment
Especially in "B" movies

Gil Scott-Heron, B Movie, Genius Lyrics

In the end, Robert Mueller is a 74 year old man that clearly didn’t want to be there. He wrote his 448 page report for a different time and American: when we got our news from morning and evening local papers, not mobile apps. He wrote it for an American that developed powers of concentration during the dominance of radio, listening intently to every word spoken. He wrote it for an America that had fewer options for distraction in the form of a plethora of cable channels and Internet websites. It is an America and American that does not exist now.

He's not Matt Dillon - tough as the laptop doctored memes made of him, or the videos of him handcuffing Orange Satan and leading him off to the pokey. He doesn't have the deep voice he had on earlier videos of his speech patterns. He's an older man now. Entropy diminishes our faculties over time. It's biology, chemistry, physics: senescence. Despite a billion-dollar industry selling us all manner of snake oil, there is nothing we can do to stop it from occurring to any and all of us. At best, we can ease its transition.

Yes. He could have used the deferment the draft board gave him during the Vietnam War: he had actual bad knees (not fake bone spurs). He conditioned himself to pass the grueling Marine physical and served his country. He went through Army Ranger School and Airborne School to jump out of perfectly good airplanes. He is in the Army Ranger Hall of Fame (I didn't know there was such a thing). After September 11, 2001, he steadily lead the FBI during some dark times as we entered the 21st Century, unsure if we'd survive at all.

Yet, there were his fellow republicans Wednesday with exception of a respectful few attacking him. The ageism jokes were repugnant of elected officials, yet it's on video. The Orange Caligula crowed it as a "win": he's consumed an entire political party, making it as crude, traitorous, licentious and feckless as himself. Pundit's like Chris Wallace said it looked "disastrous for the democrats." Chuck Todd said the "optics were terrible."

When did facts need optics? When did an attack on our nation (9/11; the 2016 election) need a band? "Infotainment" should have never entered our lexicon in the 1980s. It's made us less than non-serious: it's made us silly.

Don’t think of visuals or theatrics. Have you READ The Mueller Report? Download it for G-d's sake! You binge watch streaming videos, so you can digest this in a weekend! Did you HEAR Mueller use the words "unpatriotic" and "problematic" with regards to this president*? Did you hear that the Russians are interfering, not next year, but NOW? My senator, Richard Burr (R-NC) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va) just released the intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. It's chilling, but not enough for Mitch McConnell et al. to hesitate blocking election protections that would - in their warped minds - not favor republicans. No worries.

Fun fact: no president has ever been removed from office by impeachment. Jackson after the Civil War like Bill Clinton after Monica Lewinsky was impeached in the House but both measures failed in the Senate. Their records still reflect their impeachment.

Nixon after the Watergate impeachment inquiry was looking at it actually happening in the House and upheld in trial in the Senate with members of his own party. The inquiry was after he won a landslide reelection victory: 49 states to his opponent George McGovern's 1. He won 60.7% of the popular vote and was the first republican to sweep the south. His popularity fell after the inquiry revealed his malfeasance, and he resigned rather than be removed by members of his own party when they actually had principles and followed their Oath of Office.

Mitch McConnell above all others has reduced the senate from a political body that prided itself on deliberating hard issues and coming to consensus into a tribal, unconstitutional free-for-all. Oleg Deripaska, indicted by Mueller Russian oligarch and close adviser to Putin is building an aluminum plant in his state - no worries. Donald Trump would likely survive as McConnell would "pull a Merrick Garland," and just refuse to hold a trial. Since the votes would go on partisan lines, that would put senate republicans on record supporting a lawless president before a major election. His impeachment however would stand, on his record for all time. Impeachment is also not just about this president*, but the next actual one, and what we as a nation will tolerate.

Nancy Pelosi hasn’t brought forward an impeachment inquiry because previous to this, only 85 democrats supported impeachment. That number has climbed, and will likely go higher.

However, if the thesis of the argument is this president* is not following The Constitution and thus constitutes a crisis, neither is the current Speaker of the House. Slow-walking an impeachment inquiry is either also a constitutional crisis, or it's not. If NO ONE is following The Constitution, there effectively isn't one and the rule of law is a myth: it is the rule of whims and notions of current moments and times as arbitrated by a pathologically lying narcissist with impulse control.

Lastly, if he gets away with it, interference in our elections by foreign countries becomes in the words of Mueller “the new normal,” and our democracy* as well as our sovereignty* as currently our Putin-installed president* will forever have asterisks next to their titles. We won't have to worry about immigrants of any stripe.

Our sovereignty will depend on our getting out to vote en masse to counter any foreign election meddling, domestic voter suppression and the return of an "oldie-but-goody" in Florida: poll taxes!

We will cease to be a country.

White supremacy was this nation's origin; racism unto oblivion and the ash heap will be our epitaph.

“We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within....”

Attributed to Nikita Khrushchev in comments from Barbara Fowler post Helsinki, Orlando Sentinel