Plague Journal, No Sympathy
The world, “reality” can be cruel and dangerous. One ought always to keep that in mind. The United States is a civilized society, relatively “safe” depending on where you happen to be, upon the cash and credit cards you have in your pocket. Nonetheless, this country is a legally and administratively violent society.
Today, Friday is the final day of the second impeachment trial of former president Trump. The case against Trump is presented before the Senate. The case has been a “slam dunk.” The phrase recalls to mind the days of Michael Jordan, when the Chicago Bulls won six championships in a row. Jordan was the exemplar of the breath taking slam-dunk. The case against Trump has been a “slam dunk.”
When my children were younger, I remember warning them to always keep in mind they live in a legally violent society. Such has been on display as video has transported the members of the Senate back to January 6th, seeing and hearing as if they were in the midst of the mob at Trump’s direction, that stormed and invested the capitol. Of course many of them were hiding inside the building, the mission of the crazed mob. As the case was presented with video evidence, most of the republican Senators, half the members of the Senate, have shown disinterest, reading whatever materials they have at hand, — an indication of of how they intend to vote at the end of the trial. Trump will be found “not guilty” of a high crime, incitement to overthrow an election. Conviction requires a two thirds vote of the Senate.
Though I was not yet born, 1946 was the year of the trials at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg Germany. Two hundred Nazi officials were called to account for war crimes before a tribunal of eight judges from four allied nations. I can imagine that trial, — if half the members of the judiciary panel had been selected randomly, from surviving members of the the Schultzstaffel, the SS, Hitler’s personal body guard. The SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance, and terror within Germany and German-occupied Europe.
I found my copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson on the shelf. I just feel the time has come to revisit that tale.
No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.
— Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson.
