Touring the Valley

Because MONEY is more important than anything else.

"Avarice" (1904), James Ensor

National parks are popular! They actually bring in more money than it costs to run them. Yet the Republican regime wants to kill them. Why? They want to trade the public good for private gain. The plan is to sell our natural resources to ruthless industrialists, to be torn apart, mined for minerals, drilled for oil, and stripped of lumber. Creepy rich guys will pay a lot to be allowed to shoot all the animals. The Grand Canyon is huge. It would be a great place to dump toxic waste.

None of the money generated by destroying our parks and other agencies will be used to benefit Americans in any way. Old people will still be robbed of Social Security and Medicare. Research to cure diseases will not be funded. Disaster relief will not be provided after storms and fires. Laws that protect our food, water, and air will not be enforced. Schools will be closed. Children will not be fed. Medicaid will disappear. Even weather forecasting will be stopped.

Where will all that money go? Will it be refunded to taxpayers? No. Will some helpful programs be re-opened? No. Instead, there will be more ad campaigns praising Dear Leader. An irresponsible billionaire will get more government contracts. Dear Leader and his buddies will spend even more time using government-owned planes to fly off to resort vacations. They will hire more private soldiers to guard them from contact with the public. Wealthy Republican donors will buy more yachts, do more golfing, and have more fancy parties.

The sole purpose of the Republican regime is to create permanent damage in exchange for the temporary gratification of the oligarchs. A billionaire's lifestyle will not be improved or harmed if his net worth goes up or down by hundreds of millions, but seeing it go up on paper makes him feel better for a little while, and that's a good enough reason to make sure our grandchildren never walk in a forest or see an eagle.

But What's In It For Me?

Every chance they get, Musk, trump, and their closest buds try to demonize "NGOs". NGO just stands for Non-Government Organization, or what we Americans usually refer to as a "nonprofit", like the Red Cross, Samaritan's Purse, or Save the Children.

These guys claim that nonprofits are all corrupt and are stealing money to enrich their leaders. Musk has even claimed that organizations feeding starving children are criminal. This is because Musk and trump simply cannot believe anyone would want to do good things for other people. They believe the only reason to do anything in life is to make money. Healing the sick, feeding the hungry, making the world a better place in some way -- these ideas just don't make sense to them.

Whatever they do, they're only in it for the money, and they assume other people are just like them. "Those charities must be stealing the donations," they think. "That's what I would do."

Telling them that they should support a program that cures disease is not persuasive, unless there is a way for them to profit from it. Telling them that cutting a program will cause suffering and death is not persuasive, because they do not believe human lives (other than their own) have value beyond the ability to generate profits. Once you understand this about them, the bizarre-seeming things they say and do are easily explained.

The Greater Good

Photo by Duncan Kidd on Unsplash

I turned on the TV this afternoon and saw the last 45 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan".

It occurred to me that most of this movie is probably incomprehensible to Comrade Krasnov, who simply can't understand why people would sacrifice themselves for the greater good. To him, there is nothing greater than the fulfillment of his own desires, the accumulation of wealth, the exercise of power in the service of petty grievances, the feeling of nasty satisfaction obtained from being able to destroy an entire nation.

A film like that is no doubt also meaningless to Musk, who is ignorant of American history, oblivious to patriotism, and unable to identify with people who want to help others.

After his life is saved, Private Ryan is advised that he should try to deserve what his comrades did for him, and he takes that to heart, striving to live a righteous life, to be a good man. Krasnov and Musk don't feel obligated to make such an effort; in their minds, they are entitled to have all life on earth sacrificed for them, simply because they have "good genes".

Ancient History

Caligula Appointing His Horse Incitatus to the Consulship, unknown author, 1616–1669. Source: The Art Institute of Chicago

The Roman emperor Caligula ruled for only four years before he was assassinated. Caligula was hated by the Roman people, and historians hated him, too. The tales of his madness and misdeeds are likely exaggerated, and sometimes invented, just to show what a monster he was.

In any case, it seems true that he was mentally unbalanced. He declared himself a god. He spent a fortune on his palace and put up statues of himself. He forced the Senate to watch him dance in the middle of the night. He passed laws to keep people from looking at his bald spot. He mocked and insulted people. He was also a sadist. Among other things, he sometimes locked up the food supplies so the population would starve. He really made politicians mad when he announced his plan to appoint his horse to the Senate, making it clear that he thought an unqualified beast could do just as good a job as anyone else.

His unpopularity reached its peak, and officers of his own Praetorian Guards conspired to kill him. Led by a man Caligula had mocked for having a squeaky voice, they stabbed him to death and then declared his uncle Claudius the new emperor. That's how they did impeachment in 41 A.D.

To this day, Caligula is remembered as a cruel, narcissistic, depraved tyrant. Unqualified political appointees are sometimes compared to Caligula's horse.

'