ripe for dissolution

“the monroe doctrine is a big deal”____ trump: we’re dealing with people who were just got sworn in, and don’t ask me who’s in charge, because I’ll give you an answer that will be controversial. Reporter: what does that mean? Trump: it means we’re in charge.____ “we need total access. total access to the oil.”____ on gustavo petro and columbia: “run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the united states. he’s not going to be doing it for very long.”____ “american dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again.”____ “we need greenland from a standpoint of national security.”____ ‘i don’t know if they’re going to hold out, but cuba now has no income.”_____ the political cover for the monroe doctrine was that it served to protect the emerging nations in central and south america from re-colonization and/or interference in their internal affairs by european powers...that this “doctrine" was, from its inception, used as a rationalization for the united states to interfere in the internal affairs of those nations is a given...from chile to nicargua to guatemala and panama and so on, this seems to be a blind spot ...it’s a “big deal” because don ( and, no doubt, his trusted handlers...he isn’t thinking this stuff up on his own ) can use it to re-institute the socio-political and international relations of the late 19th century...except, of course, in cuba where a return to the batista era of the 1950s with casinos and hookers in the streets of havana are the foreseen outcome...the late empire is in an expansionist mood...which may give the russians a green light in ukraine ( since resources will be tight as the expansion bogs down ) and big dada xi may well knock off taiwan since that is his “sphere of influence”...and did anyone else notice the comment about “total access to the oil”...we may be closing in on the main nerve there...and that probably won’t please big dada xi since china seems to be venezuela’s biggest customer...the times continue to be interesting.

not the first time

on the twentieth of december 1989 george herbert walker bush sent u s troops into panama to arrest manuel noriega the "superem leader" on suspicion of smuggling drugs into the united states ( altheough there was some concern he was selling his services to intelligence agencies other than those of the united states as well)...manuel holed up in the vatican embassy and, rather than break down the door, the troops used "psychops"...in other words bright light and loud music...which finally either drove manuel out or he was expelled ( ironically on the third of january 1990 ) and taken into custody, brought to the united states, tried, convicted, and jailed...all without much concern for panama's soverignty...

thirty-six years later to the day and, after weeks of military strikes on boats suspected of smuggling drugs from venezuela ( and what some analysts say are extrajudical murders ) the u s military and "law enforcement" have attacked caracas and siezed nicolas maduro and his wife cilia flores for suspected connection to the cartel de los soles an alleged drug cartel and author of the above attacked boats...a cartel which some analysts ( who seem to choose to remain unnamed ) say does not exist...nosy as i am i downloaded the drug enforcement agency's "2025 national drug threat assessment" and have been having a look...the "transnational criminal organizations" section lists nine drug cartels operating worldwide...they are the sinaloa cartel, the jalisco new generation cartel, the northeast cartel, the michoacan family cartel, the new michoacan family cartel,the united cartel, and the gulf cartel all in mexico as well as the mara salvatrucha cartel in los angeles...the olny cartel listed working out of venezuela is the tren de aragua cartel...for an agency charged with overseeing the interdiction of ilicit drugs the oversight of a major cartel such as the cartel de los soles with such a prominent figure as nicolas maduro at its heads seems unpardonably unprofessional...which leaves me wondering whether this is all about drug smuggling or who controls venezuela's oil reserves...the coast guard is running down tankers with venezuelan oil and the russians are seeming to offer some asylum...or at least protection in name...geopolitical control of resources seems to me to be a more likely explanation than the existence of some bogus drug cartel...like noriega maduro will go to jail and look for a regime change in venezuela...nothing new about that in the imperial playbook...nicaragua, guatenmala, chile, the dominican republic...it's been done

10 november

"no; a Canadian winter for my money; or a Russian one, where every man is but a co-proprietor with the north wind in the free simple of his own ears." thomas de quicey______________tom's weather has arrived...for the moment at least...of course tom wanted foul weather so no one would interrupt his use of ( or worse yet want to share in his ) laudanum...tom was a conservative tory politically and a great admirer of david ricardo an immanuel kant...neither of which provided any restaint on his use of opiates...that people, and particularly children, were fond of him shows a decent temperment...that he "almost" overcame his laudanum habit shows that a decent temperment isn't of necessity an aid in overcoming an addiction...never an easy road

the dialectic grinds on

mamdni wins in new york...spanberger in virginia....sherrill in new jersey...california goes in for redistricting...all this will make the tumpists nervous ( as though they weren't a nervous lot already...so much disturbs them ) and what will that engender? their denunciations of all that they hate will become more shrill...a chattering, high-pitched whine that may finally drive the rats out of whoretown...and they will dig deeper looking to create crises that will allow the suspension of elections in 2026 and 2028, the delaration martial law, and rule by decree...all this because they thought they could ram project 2025 down the polity's throat without resistance...nothing is ever that simple...they are chock full of hubris...rendered ignorant ( or unsensing ) by dogma...the fat's in the fire...so where is the reichstag?

st. thomas's day used to be 21 december, now it's 3 july...i have my doubts about the church's motives

i find that in my seventies, since i am still working ( at a wage-paying "job"...i work maintaining the house as well, among other things...all unpaid however all necessary ) much of my "time" is administered by a clock set by someone else ( and this "administered time" would include laundering work clothes, conmmuting, preparing a lunch, looking up a schedule on line, etc. all the shadow work that goes along with being "on the job" ) and, increasingly, it becomes clear that clock time is an anthropogenic artifice of command and control imposed on a natural system ( hence "leap seconds" to correct it ) as is calendar time ( hence "leap days" )...at some point soon enough i will be dead and, near as i can tell, outside time without extension...until then i hope for a period where i can dispense with at least clocks, although calendars may still be necessary to chart payment of monthly, bi-annual, and annual obligations, and exist in "event time" ( all the while hoping the events are not too unpleasant )...until then i will always look forward to the end of another anthropogenic artifice ( worthy of the casuistry of a jesuit ) daylight savings time....i get the hour the extractive economy stole last march back for a third of the year and i can revel in the dark with de quincey..."surely every body is aware of the divine pleasures that attend a winter fireside: candles at four o' clock, warm hearth rugs, tea, a fair tea maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging wildly without...so great an epicure am i in this matter that i cannot fully relish a winter night fully if it be much past st. thomas's day and have degenerated in to disgusting vernal appearnces...from the latter weeks of october until christmas eve therefore is the period when happiness is in season."...the "latter weeks of october" are past, however my hour is at hand and the "season" has arrived.

"ruins value"

"Hitler liked to say that the purpose of his building was to transmit his time and its spirit to posterity. Ultimately, all that remained to remind men of the great epochs of history was their monumental architecture, he remarked. What then remained of the emperors of the Roman Empire? What would still give evidence of them today, if not their buildings."____albert speer. "inside the third reich"

show trials

when an authoritarian teleology begins to falter and its stated ends seem to be fading out of reach ( which presents something of paradox since the stated goals of any teleology are always somewhere in the future and reaching that future always requires "sacrifices" in the now for those future gains and it is always instructive to ponder who benefits from those "sacrifices" in the "now" the polity are called on to make ) a police force dedicated to controling behavior and thought is necessary...and that police force consists of more than law enforcement elements...politicians and media play leading roles in framing debates and marginalizing or eliminating dissent...these limits on free discussion are not sufficient to validate the dominanat ideology...the ideology itself is inviolate ...it has the true and final ends firmly in hand so there must be some internal resistance impeeding its progress..."wreckers and saboteurs" ( or "domestic terrorists" in maga terminology ) that collude to subvert the final ends...to prove the validity of that contention public statements of guilt substantiating it are necessary and so show trials are engendered...ideologically motivated farces with forgone conclusions condeming various officials on trumped-up charges...the further up the hierarchy, without touching the upper cadres' circle the better to display the depth of the resistance the ideology faces and explaining its seeming inability to deliver its stated ends...has the u.s. seen show trials? well...the simpson trial was 352 days of theater and seemingly inept prosecution...there have been politically charged trials...sacco and vanzetti may or may not have been involved in a payroll heist that resulted in two murders ( there was recanted testimony and a confesion by another alleged perpetrator ) but they were itallian and anarchists so blind justice concluded they must be guilty of something that warranted electrocution...patty hearst got off with basically a wrist slap 22 month sentence for bank robbery which was the result of jimmy carter commuting it and she was later pardoned by bill clinton because she was of the elite...while alger hiss's trial for purjury was politically expedient for richard nixon none of the above fit the definition for a show trial...never the less while we are talking purjury what about james comey?

in a remarkably short indictment he is accused of purjury ( surely not the first time law enforcement has purjured itself ) and, through that purjury, obstruction of justice...so would this be a prelude to a show trial? since it is related to an investigation into russian influence in the 2016 presidential election it is not directly tied to maga teleology ( and, as a side note, i do believe there is a maga teloelogy centering around the return of manufacturing jobs to the united states...if that is possible as well as if those jobs would pay a living [unionized] wage, and if that is the true reason for maga grasping for power are debateable ) it is however indicative of resistance to maga and touches a fairly high ranking official while not incriminating the current political elite still it may not fit the show trial definition...it may be a rehersal for creating one though and as fissures develop ( and they will ) in the maga hierarchy show trials may become politically expedient, if not necessary...stay tuned to events...if the media reports them outside the aegis of the ministry of truth