I can’t help but keep on noticing that all the usual polarities have been turned on their heads. The Soros-funded? protestors who continue decry the Trump victory are supposedly those I would usually identify with; and yet, as far as I’m concerned, they were duped by war-mongering Clinton into thinking she was the “better” candidate. Why? Because she has a vagina? Do these protestors not realize that Clinton was a pawn of the weapons manufacturers and banksters? Huh? Don’t they realize that there is no difference now, between neo-liberal and neo-conservative? That should have been clear ever since Obama appointed his cabinet in 2008:

Neo-Cons and Neo-Liberals: Two Masks, One Face

Clear, but hard to recognize. Obama’s smiling elegant gracefulness hid even the mask. Politeness still ruled in America, while, unnoticed and unremarked, the military industrial complex continued its wanton destructive mission all over the globe.

With President Trump, Is the American Experiment Over?

Now the gloves are off, though the masks are still in place. Which is why we all wonder what this next president’s cabinet is going to look like. And, let’s face it, Trump, who is the only president-elect with neither military or political experience, does need continuity, and so he does need to appoint people who know how Washington works. But as he said in the 60 minutes interview: “everybody in Washington is a lobbyist.” So:

Did Trump just sell out? “Everybody’s a lobbyist.” 

The author of the above thinks not. Instead, he sees him as a pragmatist. And that’s how I set my own intention for Trump. That he become a pragmatist: that he use the wild power of his courage and charisma to “get things done.” But what things? There’s the rub. We won’t know until he rushes headlong into those first 100 days.

Above all, he needs to remember the working class, for they are the ones who have suffered the most here in the U.S.

The white working class rebelled because neo-liberalism was literally killing them

On the other hand, what kind of jobs will be offered? Well, infrastructure, you say. But again, what kind of infrastructure? We sure could use more public transportation, more solar, wind, and other alternative energy sources. We could transform all those military bases into entreprenurial hubs, to spur the inventiveness that America is justly known for. We could convert massive agribusiness farms into small landholdings for permaculture. On and On. We do need to think big. And Trump is certainly brash enough to reach for the moon, if not the stars.

And yet, those who cheer a Trump victory, because they want the most zenophobic trait of the American unconscious to dominate poltiics, and think that he will give them that, make me want to vomit.

So while I’m all for Trump rather than Clinton, I’m waiting to see, just like everybody else. And I’m not going to take his cabinet picks as the final word, either. The latest is that those in consideration are fighting like crazy. How could it be otherwise? We pick an egotist who attracts other egotists.

Latest Short List for Trump Cabinet Positions — “It’s A Knife Fight”

Reader Julia sent me an amusing look at one of his two picks so far, the “alt-right” Steve Bannon, how his astrological chart lines up with Trump’s. Two massive egos. Who will win?

Steve Bannon Punches His Weight

BTW: for those who are interested, “alt-right” seems to refer to “leftist?” “pretending to be neutral?” alternative news sources (like Breitbart) which have been surreptitiously infiltrated by the  “right.”

Meanwhile, whatever happens next, you might say that we Americans deserved it. We didn’t pay attention. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve tried to have over many decades about our American military, and how it has turned into a cancer ravaging the entire world. Very very few people of my acquaintance, despite their wonderful ideas and attitudes and actions in many areas of environmental and social justice, wanted to hear about our actions elsewhere in the world. Why? Was it just too horrible to contemplate? Was it me? My own outrage at both our nation’s imperial hegemony and our citizens’ seemingly deliberate ignorance of same? Did I simply blow people away when I spoke, with utter disgust, of “1000 military bases worldwide”? Probably. My own polite front dissolved long ago. Though, over these past few years, I have learned to modulate my tone, or at the very least, to just stay away from situations in which my Cassandra-like presence would be “too much.”

American Empire in Chaos: Is Trump the Ultimate Blowback From Our Neverending Wars?