By Philip Drucker
I start with a simple concept. Steve Bannon is not real. What we see is not what we get. He is at best an opiate scraped from the bottom of a double-trouble boil and bubble witch caldron. Modernly, he’s a near-beer with all the taste of strawberry Kool-Aid, and is so bereft of actual ideas, that he is indeed less filling, not to the gut, but to the mind. Think Trump. Seems he can’t get enough of that funky stuff. You really believe Donnie doesn’t drink alcohol? Shame on you! Meanwhile, those brave souls thirsty for the truth, politically aware with synapses still intact human functioning brain are left high and dry.
He is a cartoon character invented for voters under the age of six. He is an orange Smurf without the any redeeming ethics, morals of even a sense of humor about itself, just in case an adult is watching. He is made with one purpose and one purpose only. To convince you to buy the breakfast cereal that when you add milk and sugar, you get all the nutritional value of milk and sugar with absolutely no hidden prize inside. Cuckoo for no health insurance coverage for patients with preexisting conditions? Then he’s the cream of weak for you.
He’s the Grinch who stole our dignity, our morality and our plurality. He’s a mean one, Mr. Bannon. He really is a heel. He’s an unprecedented mess of pseudo political junk science, he’s as slippery as an eel, Mr. Bannon! I wouldn’t touch you with a 39 ½ foot Faux New Poll!
He’s all about the dotted by line. He’s all about the sale. He will sell you whatever ideology, or whatever crackpot right wing lunatic theory, he thinks you’ll buy. Like every good Don the Con Man crony, he doesn’t believe a word he says. Anything, everything, whatever he thinks you think you need, he’s ready to seal the deal. If he can sell 30 million missing emails as proof of a treasonous conspiracy involving Hillary Clinton selling state secrets to the Chinese from a hidden server in a Washington DC pizza parlor while simultaneously running a sex trafficking ring from the basement, he can sell just about anything.
He sells gold to those who can’t afford it and mouthwash to those who really should use it. He sells Rush. He sells Russians. He sells the Blazed donut (is Glenn Beck still around?) Would you like that to go? Or will you swallow it whole, hook line and stinker?
Toppings are extra. For a small donation to his favorite “cause for alarm” of the day you can have that politically incorrect thin-skinned crust basil, tomato with extra arsenic sauce loaded up with Clintons (up to three, Hilary, Bill or Chelsea per person), conspiracy snausages and get this! It’s all you can eat, or at least all you can stomach, for one low price. Your sanity. Refills are free. You never need worry about Bannon or anyone at Breitsnark for that matter, coming up with newer, bigger, better stories. They’ll just make up more. The Big Gulp. Open wide! So much easier than digging up actual dirt. Less expensive too. Be sure to check the fine print on your “balanced news” subscription receipt. Honest reporting, fact checking, journalistic integrity and batteries are not included.
Consider this. Blahnnon worked at Gold finger bang Sachs. You know, architects of the global housing meltdown? The company that tried to heist the German central banks, and hence the EU, and hence the entire world, (including Fort Knox), with their triple fraudulent AAA rated mortgage but-in-reality junk bonds? The we profit no matter who wins the war, pyramid Ponzi scheme creators? Backed by a slew of “I don’t want to know” heads in the sand hedge fund managers of all pretzel shaped consciences and out of control ego sizes? In short, illegal activity from any rational point of view except of course, theirs? To date, no executive of any financial institution has been sent to the hoosegow for their sublime crime of serpentine very much like turpentine, and you can’t get blood from a turnip and tripe casserole of uncertain moral turpitude.
Does the American idea of freedom include the right to blindly follow an illusion? To promulgate and approve of a lie? And then another lie, and then another after that? In the hopes if enough people say it enough times it will be true? That is the very definition of propaganda. But not physics, or for that matter, civics. Does the average Trump jock strap supporter find comfort in knowing he or she is not the only lemming jumping to his/her doom? These are questions I cannot answer. Bannon could. The White Supremacy House of Trump was built by Bannon. He designed the anti-blueprint to the great red white and whiter scam. I do not like red hats and scam, Uncle Sam I am.
One of the funnier aspects of politics (and perhaps life) I have come to appreciate is leaders rarely lead, but followers always seem to follow them anyway. It seems contradictory, but I assure you it is not. When political hacks do lead, it tends to look more like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, than a Kennedy, a Gandhi, or a Stalin. In short, rat catchers who abduct children. Foregoing the inevitable snarky comments about ridding Washington DC of rodents or draining the swamp, bedbugs are fair game, what we learn from the Pied Piper is at some point the price, some price, must always be paid, sometimes with the future, or more specifically, considering climate change deniers and our exploding national deficit, our children’s future.
What is the price to pay for denying the scientific, verifiable reality and deleterious man-made effects of climate change? What is the cost of spending money we don’t have? What is the cost of racism? Misogyny? Sexism? Homophobia? Xenophobia? Religious intolerance? Of waste, want, destruction and pollution, economic inequity and yes, outright self-dealing, pay-to-play and greed as the main institutional pillar of our international and domestic policies?
What is the price we will all pay for half the country following the whole lies, half-truths, rumors, innuendo, divisive, divide and conquer culture wars, and tribal policies of he who would be the Bannon Burgermeister King? But in-reality is nothing more than a placebo in a methadone program we all know has gone horribly wrong? Bannon will only ask, “What will you pay, to look the other way?” Problem is, he’ll figure it out and sell a bottle of Lookaway™ to you too. A pain killer to ease your pain, that causes more pain, and death. The very definition of an opioid epidemic. However, all is not lost.
Here’s the reality. There has never been but one United States of America. The traits and qualities, values, goals and dreams we all have in common will always be far more in number than the illusions. Illusions, do not in fact divide us. We seek to rejoin that which has never been separated. At our core, we are one. We will always be one. Our definition of freedom does not include the right to deny others their right to freedom, to the pursuit of happiness. E Pluribus Unum. Out of many One, is no less true than when those words were first printed on the Jefferson nickel.
We will always be stronger together. One arrow can be easily broken, but tied in a bunch are sturdy and in the case of America, indestructible. For it is not our heritage, or our flesh and blood that defines us. It is our spirit. The spirit and will of a free people ready to fight for the right to live as we choose. To rise or fall as far as our hard work and ambition can take us. But make no mistake. In America, we rise and fall as one. When we all do better, we all do better. This is the story of America. This is the story of us. Our story. With liberty and justice for all. Anything else is quite frankly, a lie built upon a lie attached to an illusion.
A house built of lies can only stand for so long as we close our eyes. Trump knows this. McConnell knows this. “They” all know this. But We the People know better. A wall on our southern border, much less putting children in cages, will not help feed our children. A Muslim travelling ban will not bring jobs or economic prosperity. It won’t make us safer. From fear, or terror or both. Denying climate change will only exacerbate a potential natural disaster scenario causing what was preventable and completely unnecessary pain, suffering and death.
Oil will go the way of the dinosaurs from which it came. Coal miners will join the information age. They will code. They will thrive. They will earn a real living wage that can support their entire families. They will no longer ask what you get for lifting 16 tons of coal for they will not be sliding deeper into debt. No longer will they owe their soul to the company store. Thanks Ernie. You really could sing. Back to Bannonville.
Like all good charlatans, he’s been run out of town. No doubt he’s off to some other land where he can try his fake news elixirs, hate serums and sleight of hand dealing from the bottom of a crooked deck culture war tricks. I hope nobody is buying but illusions are often hard to shake. But make no mistake, he’ll be back in our backyard. When the moon is full and smell of wolf’s bane is in the air. Something wicked comes this way. I say the price of addiction, to hate, fear, petroleum and accompanying hallucinations is too high. The bubble must burst. The man, the myth and the misconceptions must end. As Freddy says, “time to leave it all behind and face the truth.” Be like Freddy.
The biggest lie? That getting rid of someone else, preferably not like us will solve our problems. What a lie. It won’t solve yours, it won’t solve mine. It’s just a lie. We will always have our own problems until we, perhaps with a little help from our fellow Americans and friends, take responsibility and solve them. Ourselves. This much I know. This and that we truly are stronger together. I’m here. Who is with me?
Oh, and as for you, Mean Mr. Bannon Mustard, you’ve got your weapons, and now, I’ve got mine. En garde! You evil blackguard you!
I’m with you professor! Well done.