CommentsONE MAN’S OPINION-If one could explain how America went from the United States of America to the present mess, it is unlikely anyone would take the time to listen.
We know SNAFU means “Situation Normal, All F’d Up,” but few have heard about TARFUN which is “Things Are Really F-Upped Now” or FUBAR, which is “F’d Up Beyond All Recognition.” It’s unlikely that a nation in love with hyper-emotional memes will put in the intellectual energy to analyze history.
In 1972, Pogo’s alerted us when he warned that We the People are the enemy. Pogo was only rephrasing Cassius, “The fault, dear Brutus, rests not in our stars, but in ourselves.” (Julius Caesar, I, ii, 140-141) Cassius, who had a lean and hungry look (Act 1, scene 2, 190–195), was summarizing Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics. The quality of the polis rests in the quality of its individual members.
Perhaps people cannot deal with generalities, or with Shakespearian English, or with esoteric political philosophy treatises, but speaking in 1999, Sen. Byron Dorgan was explicit about America’s lurch into Corruptionism by repealing Glass-Steagall. "I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this, but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930s is true in 2010." The Crash of 2008 hit two years earlier than he predicted. Sen. Dorgan was overly optimistic about Americans’ ability to recognize their folly. Rather than say, “we should not have done this,” we chose, “damn the torpedoes full speed ahead.”
Obama Gave us TARFUN
Although Obama promised hope, we brought us “Things Are Really F-Up Now.” Remember that Saint Obama made a secret pact with Big Pharma and refused to propose Universal Health Care, while giving between $15 and $20 trillion to American and European Bankers while sending America’s Main Street into bankruptcy court and the Rust Belt’s jobs overseas. One reason no one paid any attention to how the GOP and the Dems were jointly Really F-ing Up Things is that we were embroiled with anti-Obama racism, especially with the immoral Birtherism.
Trump Brings Us to the Threshold of FUBAR
Normally, one would say that the election of a mentally disturbed, habitual liar would qualify as situation “F’d Up Beyond All Recognition.” Sadly, the 2016 election merely started the FUBAR phase. Our behavior after the election has gone beyond FUBAR and deep into the territory of FUBI, “F’d Up Beyond Imagination.”
Kidnaping and Ransom as the Art of the Deal
The essence of kidnaping is that you seize someone, and you hold them hostage until you are paid your ransom. Americans need perspicuity to know when political extortion has morphed into a form of kidnaping. We need to recognize Trump’s craven immorality for locking up toddlers in cages and later seizing the income of hundreds of thousands of Americans so he can get whatever he wants. In some societies, kidnaping babies who die while hidden from their parents is murder, but not in FUBI America. Some recognize that Trump’s behavior is similar to narco-drug gangs in Mexico who routinely kidnap children and demand payment. The craven Democrats are now negotiating the size and nature of the ransom.
Paying ransom always leads to more kidnappings. Justifying giving Trump his Wall because we need to stop the shutdown is the opposite of Never Negotiate with Terrorists. The Dems are losing a battle of wits with a mental defective.
We the People Brought FUBI Upon Ourselves
Who is at fault for our leaders’ lack of morality? Trump exists and Pelosi is Speaker of the House again and we are now in FUBI because We the People are our own enemy. This week on The View, Whoopi Goldberg sensed a teensie-weensie bit of the vast immoral, national corruptionism which characterizes FUBI when she attacked NYC mayor Bill de Blasio over his Visions Zero policy and his ferkata bike lanes. Interestingly, Visions Zero is the exact same morsel of corruptionism which Garcetti has foisted on Angelenos as part of his diverting hundreds of billions of dollars to the 1%. This has given Los Angeles the worse GINI Coefficient of any major urban area. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me a thousand times, FUBI.
Escape from FUBI?
It took the Russians from 1917 to 1991 for the Communist state to dissolve. We are still unable to Image how f’d up the situation has become. The government’s caging toddlers turned America into a replica of a Romanian orphanage. After Trump’s success in holding immigrant babies hostage, he turned the same ploy on the income of American workers. Rather than being shocked at his abject his immorality, people want to pay Trump’s ransom.
Just in case you naively had a glimmer of hope that some integrity was left somewhere, now Buzz-Feed has gotten into a fight with the Mueller investigation over what is true. The liberal media’s engaging in fake news is not unimaginable but casting doubt upon Mueller’s veracity is incomprehensible. The Dems have staked everything -- absolutely everything -- on the credibility of the Mueller report to provide the grounds for Trump’s impeachment. (Why relying on Mueller was a moronic political strategy devised by moral cowards is for another discussion.)
Triumph of FUBI
We have gone from America the Beautiful with amber waves of grain, asking that our good be crowned with brotherhood, to imprisoning toddlers and holding the income of Americans ransom so that Donald Trump can become a dictator. The law shall henceforth be whatever Trump wants it to be. It is F’d Up Beyond Imagination that we have fallen so low so fast. FUBI reigns supreme.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
