ARCHITECT OF CRUELTY -courtesy photo
ARE WE A CRUEL NATION?
IT’S ALREADY TOMORROW
You know, that day you’ve been dreading, when we look around and become very afraid and try to figure out what we can do. And every idea seems like something we should have done… yesterday.
There is no tomorrow. Today is not as bad as it can get, but the pace of getting there is faster, better organized and more ruthless than most imagined. (Not me, I read Projet 2025 in 2024, but there is no moral high ground when the boat we are all in is rapidly sinking, in alligator-infested waters.)
There are so many inhuman, life-threatening, power-grabbing, economy-crashing, democracy-destroying, dictator-installing measures in the GOP Big Bad Billionaires Bill that you must do a little searching, making sure you check your sources, and prepare to be open-mouth shocked and appalled. It is the largest transfer of wealth in U. S. history, from the bottom to the top, of course, and millions will suffer and even die because of it. But let me name the one that keeps me awake at night.
OUR OWN GOVERNMENT IS GRABBING PEOPLE OFF THE STREETS
WITH NO WARRANTS, NOT EVEN PROBABLE CAUSE
NO DUE PROCESS
THROWING THEM INTO UNMARKED VANS
AND DISAPPEARING THEM OFF TO HORRIBLE PRISONS
IN THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACES ON EARTH
Including now, Florida. “Alligator Alcatraz” is just one more example of extreme cruelty intended to spread terror and fear. What have we become? The whole thing about cutting waste and fraud was, of course, a smokescreen. In the first 100 days, Trump spent $150B MORE than Biden last year (first 100 days). $26,000,000 taxpayer money just on golf, just through the end of March. Musk’s unfettered crash through our institutions and data had nothing to do with saving money, just saving his government grants (in the billions), and collecting ALL our data.
Go read a history book (unless you live in a red state that has banned them). You can start with Adolph’s Brown Shirts and how they operated. Do the letters I-C-E come to mind? What the hell, people?! They are kidnapping people off our streets! And disappearing them. Is that who we are now? SOMETHING must be done. The 2nd American Revolution is well underway.
Los Angeles is an occupied city, thousands of ICE agents, National Guard and even the U.S. Marines. Why? Do you see a crisis that calls for that? But Trump declared a week ago that if he hadn’t sent in the troops, “LA would have burned to the ground!” We have got to shout him down when he spews such dangerous dog do-do. Media? Do your job. Get a spine. You have failed us, when we most need you. This is not politics as usual, this is an authoritarian coup in progress. No more “whatabout” and “both sides do it.” That’s not journalism. The revolution may not be televised, but it sure needs accurate reporting.
I still believe in the American people and our Constitution, and that bodies in the streets by the millions, and yes art, can defeat the forces of evil autocracy that are now unraveling a coup. I’m tired of shying away from terms like “evil,” or any references to Hitler and Nazi Germany. If it walks like a duck… I will no longer cater to ignorance.
THE BIG, BAD, BILLIONAIRES BILL
Will do great harm to the U.S., for decades. Some of it cannot be undone. Neutral experts estimate it will add $3-4 trillion to our already huge national debt. Yet someone on Fox this morning looked straight at the camera and said it will REDUCE the debt by $7-11T. Trump is still talking about “no tax on Social Security” and that’s a big fat lie. They talked about it but it was never in the bill. I doubt Trump knows very much about what’s in those 887 pages. He just knows he wants it. And his relentless bully tactics will get it for him. The burnt orange billionaire bully and his willingness, even delight, to use it. So,
WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE WILL WE BE
when all this goes into effect? Where does the money for the billionaire tax cuts come from? From the very poorest and most vulnerable among us.
14-17 million families will lose their health care, mostly through Medicaid, which Trump is STILL claiming “won’t be touched.” It will be “touched” for $1TRILLION, which will result in many rural hospitals having to close, and many elderly in assisted living to be turned out. PEOPLE WILL DIE.
SNA (Food Stamps) will be eliminated for 5M people. Food out of the mouths of hungry children, so billionaires can get an extra $330,000 a year. PEOPLE WILL DIE.
Remember when Trump sent his biggest campaign donor, the richest man in the world, in to cut USAID? You probably never heard of it before. A recent credible estimate said that more than 400,000 children in African nations who did not get that aid, food and medicines left locked in warehouses, have died. In just a few months.
We all have to step into the fray, folks. When your grandchildren ask you, what did you do?! What will you say?.
SANTA MONICA
Sorry. Too much thinking about an escalating existential crisis leaves me little bandwidth for our ongoing local crises. I wish the Council members would pay more attention to crime and safety issues than they do to density development. But maybe that’s just my slant.
Our police chief recently went begging to the Council for five more officers, and was left holding the bag. You have Jesse Zwick writing in the Daily Press, “Save the Civic? Or Save the City?” It’s laughable but it shows where his efforts lie. He did his best to stand in the way of letting a high level professional group restore the historic Civic Auditorium back to performance level, at no cost to the city. Council also discussed giving it to the school district to turn into a second gym. Holey moley. Get the libraries open, don’t discuss selling them. These things happen when ideology dictates policy.
Few people pay much attention to local politics, and even fewer to the school board. But they have been out of control for years, in my opinion. Someone who does follow it is SMDP columnist Miles Warner. His June 2 column nailed it from the headline to the last period: “Your School Board Doesn’t Care What You Think (and they don’t have to).” https://smdp.com/opinion/our-school-board-does-not-care-what-you-think-and-they-dont-have-to/
SMMUSD
Has become one of the biggest developers in the area, to the tune of more than $1.5B in construction, financed by our school bonds. Samohi is now unrecognizable, there have been complaints about some of the new buildings, they built a $40M gym that couldn’t be used for competition, they demolished the historic History Building, 80 years old, instead of repurposing it. Many community members, and historic preservation professionals asked for the renovation, but it fell on deaf ears, and it was razed. They let a water leak at SMASH go neglected for 10 years until the whole SMASH/John Muir campus had to be demolished. Now that the replacement is nearly ready, they want to throw away the SMASH name, a proud beacon of alternative education for more than half a century. Even little kids are unhappy enough to make signs and attend board meetings.
They want to replace grass with plastic grass. They let their historic Muir Woods mural deteriorate to ruin, then paint it over despite thousands of signatures asking for it to be repainted.
Please, Lord, only one crisis at a time.
Charles Andrews has lived in Santa Monica for 38 years and wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. Really. Send love and/or rebuke to him at therealmrmusic@gmail.com