This year I am going to write something short, mostly daily, about what is going on – “2 cents on the Arrived Ecological Debacle” (2cotAED). I have to write it; you don’t have to read it. If you DO read it, feel free to tell me how wrong I am (and hopefully why). Re: the debacle aspect: in 2004 the English writer Sara Maitland wrote about the “pending ecological debacle.” The expression stuck with me; it’s a debacle because it was foreseen, warned about and was avoidable. Well, it’s no longer really “pending” is it?
I should have mentioned in my last post – about Trump and Starmer – the psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion, who made the point that groups select their most damaged member as leader (1).
I seem to think about Bion every day, and he popped up in an interview with Mike Brearely (which I came to via this hilarious epitaph for the (death) cult that is Bazzball. ) Anyhoos, the magnificent Staffordshire Libraries have – in my home town – a copy of Brearley’s book. Nom nom nom (it has been borrowed).
On the subject of the darkest and stupidest timeline (see footnote 1), check out this Bsky from David Ho about biodiversity.
Meanwhile, Google have renamed Gulf of Mexico on maps as Gulf of America.
This is a hazing by the Trump gang. The point is to force either resistance, that then can be attacked and crushed, or obedience. Obedience destroys credibility, destroys morale and makes any future resistance harder. Just because he is a dictator and repugnant and ignorant, doesn’t mean he does not know how the game is played.
I am not the only person to spot this.
[Update Feb 14: It occurred to me (and I wrote on Bluesky) that in the 1950s it was loyalty oaths, but now it is a stupidity oath that people are being expected to take.]
Ralph Nader (I did not know he was still alive) is good on what is at stake. But the sheep, the sheep are not looking up.
Final point – I think this – the tawdriness of it – is offending a lot of people’s amour-propre. To be defeated by aliens with superior technology would be one thing. Bad, but “hey, they’ve clearly got faster-than-light travel and so on, so whaddyagonna do?” To be defeated by organised, charismatic and competent foreigners? Also bad, but at least you can respect the new overlords. But these transparent goons, crude and venal, relying on speed and shock and awe? It’s humiliating af.
Footnotes
(1) This is nicely displayed in the season 3 episode of Community with the game of Yatzhee and the different timelines – Jeff, who is the charismatic allegedly ‘sorted’ one is not the key person whose removal would cause chaos – that’s Troy, played by Donald Glover. Though on reflection, I am conflating “leader” and “keystone” – and those are quite different…
marchudson.net 
I like the “Gulf of America”, after al,l the gulf in our world is America or it’s voice piece, Donald Trump. One has to wonder, does Trump really represent the American people?
Or is he just a piece of undigested potato, the effects of which, can be cured by swallowing an antacid preparation?