DC Mayor Muriel Bowser & Donald Trump: "Tearing it Down" Like 2 Peas in a Pod ('buridiocy")
Now that Donald Trump is occupying the White House (as our first "non-president"), many people have taken to expressing their fears on social media. Others, like myself, want to understand what types of damage he'll do and to see what we can do in the way of a "pre-emptive strike" -- like those that Bush 43 initiated against Saddam Hussein in a "buridiotic" war to stop him from using the WMD's that he didn't have in the first place. Though it might seem to be an impossible feat, I've been able to find a method to Trump's madness. In short, he's the "developer/mayor-in-chief". He seems to support the fascistic policies that have become all too common among local governments in the "Untied" States and he'll use the federal government to enforce them and bring about more of the same. Imagine a mayor and a developer working together to operate a tank and you've got the Donald.
For some years now, various American cities have outlawed sharing food with the homeless in parks and other public places; have used money that would've been better spent on housing and employment efforts to instead do all that they can to make a homeless person's life more difficult than poverty alone ever could, and have arrested people for sleeping in public -- even when they had no home or access to shelter. (This was considered torture when American soldiers did it to Iraqi captives -- one of the practices that Trump might bring back, if he has his way.) From Orlando to Budapest the homeless and those who help them have gone to jail (which some cities use as shelters anyway) or been fined for satisfying basic human necessities -- whether their own or someone else's -- and even if they're 90 years old. (I've witnessed it first-hand in Orlando.) We are NOT a Christian nation.
Just days after Trump's "in-dog-uration", a Facebook friend posted a comment in which he explained how Rudy Giuliani worked on behalf of Donald Trump and others in the business community to clean the streets of Manhattan of the eyesores called "homeless people". The police could mandate that a homeless person go to a shelter or go to jail. Shelters could mandate that residents enter into work programs -- a rule that DOES have moral underpinnings. If the homeless didn't remain in and fully comply with the rules of the work program, they could be ejected from the shelter and return to the streets where they were again at risk of arrest if they didn't enter shelter. (I won't address the employment challenges of the homeless here and now; but, suffice it to say that laziness and incompetence are not the only reasons that a homeless person might not obtain and retain employment. Click the previous hyperlink.) Long story short, mayors and other city officials in the "Untied" States often treat homeless people like animals who are in the way of business -- like rats in a restaurant.
The title of this post says that "DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and Donald Trump [are] 'Tearing it Down' Like 2 peas in [the] pod [of] 'buridiocy' (bureaucratic idiocy)". Now to defend that statement. It's not hard to see that a developer-turned-chief-executive would have a few things in common with a chief executive who kowtows to her local developers. Given the number of executive orders that Donald Trump signed during his first few days in office and the control that various DC mayors -- including Muriel Bowser -- afford developers, I'm guessing that the Trump-Bowser relationship will not be anything like the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship. It's more likely that Trump will be a "politically abusive husband" and Bowser will be that wife who stays, complains about the political butt-kicking and seems to be loving every minute of it -- because she stays...in contact and in a "working" relationship with the non-prez. After all, she'll be able to blame various draconian, gentrifying policies on the Trump administration in much the same way that she blamed former mayor Vince Gray for the 14% increase in homeless people during her first year in office. She'll be able to complete the local business community's 20-year plan for gentrification while blaming the non-president who (like an abusive husband) won't heed her cries anyway. In the meantime, the average ignoramus will sympathize with the mayor as she laughs them to scorn. That said, their political marriage is one in which the wife is the devious but rational one, while Trump (like an abusive husband) is both the victim of rabid emotion and the more powerful partner -- these two attributes of his not being good bedfellows.
It would seem that the singular area in which Trump has been most consistent is his total disdain for all things intelligent. As president-(s)elect he said that he wanted to close the U.S. Dept. of Education. He has also denied the findings of 17 intelligence agencies that indicated that Russia hacked the DNC website. He denies the science of climate change; and, as if the feds going after the likes of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden were not enough, Trump has taken to all but dismantling the EPA lest it tell any more truths about how we are destroying the planet.
The non-president has thus far proven to be even better at implementing policies of "buridiocy" in his current home of Washington, DC -- but not beyond 1/20/21, hopefully. He's already taking steps to reverse the DC law that previously forbade common citizens from owning handguns and more recently was altered so as to place very stringent restrictions on handgun ownership. Oddly enough, he also wants to reverse a new local law that allows for assisted suicide. Let's also factor in that, in the past couple of years the DC Jail has not been full to capacity, due to the decriminalization of marijuana, which has led to discussions around bringing more educational and job-training programs into the space that is no longer being occupied by inmates. Finally, let's consider that, in the past three or so years, I've not had my subway ride interrupted by a suicidal jumper in another station.
Taken together, this means that, while very ill people won't be allowed to have their suffering ended by a doctor, many more unsuspecting victims will have their lives ended by murderers who then fill the empty beds at the jail and force the educational and employment programs back out -- part of a national trend, by all means. All of this will give DC's bourgeoisie and elitist class -- as well as the mayor -- all the fodder they need to disparage the poor and to say that the city has done all that it can and should do for its poor, respectively. This will serve as justification for de-funding and eventually dismantling social services -- which the Trump administration and current congress are already working on at the national level.
Bowser is, no doubt, elated that the elitists who are coming out against her family shelter replacement plan aren't yet asking what will become of the vacated hospital and may be hoping that they never will. As the non-president whom she politically (albeit secretly) espouses takes active steps to tear down anything that represents intelligence or critical thought, the "victimized" wife is likely glad for the dumbing down of America and the apparent distraction that abides less than five blocks from her office. Two peas in a pod. Let's not forget that Adrian Fenty (who gave Bowser her political start) planned to make DC a "world-clASS city when he took office in 2007 and then lost his re-election bid -- at least, in part, due to ignoring racial and income disparities. (It remains to be seen as to how much more her legacy will mimic his.)
So, we have a non-president who is tearing down all things intelligent and whose executive orders may lead to him single-handedly eradicating the remnant of credibility and respect that the "Untied" States have in the world. He might even be given the go-ahead by Congress to carpet bomb ISIS into oblivion and further destabilize the world with an endless war on terror. Bowser just wants to give away a piece of public property so that it can be torn down, as she waits for Trump-induced budgetary constraints to give her the reason she so desperately wants and needs in order to justify tearing down the remnant of DC's social safety net. Tearing it down together. Two peas in a pod.
For some years now, various American cities have outlawed sharing food with the homeless in parks and other public places; have used money that would've been better spent on housing and employment efforts to instead do all that they can to make a homeless person's life more difficult than poverty alone ever could, and have arrested people for sleeping in public -- even when they had no home or access to shelter. (This was considered torture when American soldiers did it to Iraqi captives -- one of the practices that Trump might bring back, if he has his way.) From Orlando to Budapest the homeless and those who help them have gone to jail (which some cities use as shelters anyway) or been fined for satisfying basic human necessities -- whether their own or someone else's -- and even if they're 90 years old. (I've witnessed it first-hand in Orlando.) We are NOT a Christian nation.
Just days after Trump's "in-dog-uration", a Facebook friend posted a comment in which he explained how Rudy Giuliani worked on behalf of Donald Trump and others in the business community to clean the streets of Manhattan of the eyesores called "homeless people". The police could mandate that a homeless person go to a shelter or go to jail. Shelters could mandate that residents enter into work programs -- a rule that DOES have moral underpinnings. If the homeless didn't remain in and fully comply with the rules of the work program, they could be ejected from the shelter and return to the streets where they were again at risk of arrest if they didn't enter shelter. (I won't address the employment challenges of the homeless here and now; but, suffice it to say that laziness and incompetence are not the only reasons that a homeless person might not obtain and retain employment. Click the previous hyperlink.) Long story short, mayors and other city officials in the "Untied" States often treat homeless people like animals who are in the way of business -- like rats in a restaurant.
"To the capitalist, the poor are obstacles standing in the way of businesses and of making a profit. To the Socialist, deregulation is the obstacle standing in the way of making businesses spend some of their profit on the poor. To the Communist, the profit motive is altogether greedy; "poverty" (the good kind) is a state of having only what one actually needs and the workers ARE the business -- both the producers and the consumers. Be a Communist -- like Christ."Though some of my fellow Leftists seem to have the logic of a lemon (or of Trump -- as if there's a difference), I do my best to avoid using irrational, emotion-based sensationalism that can easily be shot down. That said, we know that it is developers who build cities and that no mayor can totally dismiss them. Mayors and developers have a symbiotic relationship (but, the two are rarely met in the person of a president). Though any local police force can undoubtedly outgun any developer, any city would deteriorate without builders and wouldn't remain much of a city thereafter without its builders. It is this type of stalemate out of which the fascistic marriage of government and business is born. "If ya can't beat 'em, join 'em." This same dynamic is at work when it comes to weapon developers and the federal government. Mr. Trump, by the way, just went from being the businessman who was accustomed to local government being a willing servant that was at his beckon call, to "heading"(?) a government while probably hoping that the business community -- replete with the weapon developers he'll need in order to fight ISIS -- won't now use his former tactics against him. If Trump's friendship with Vladimir Putin and his having offered cabinet positions to multiple GOP opponents are any indication, Melania will soon envy the love and affection that Lockheed Martin gets from her husband as he forges a militant marriage of convenience.
The title of this post says that "DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and Donald Trump [are] 'Tearing it Down' Like 2 peas in [the] pod [of] 'buridiocy' (bureaucratic idiocy)". Now to defend that statement. It's not hard to see that a developer-turned-chief-executive would have a few things in common with a chief executive who kowtows to her local developers. Given the number of executive orders that Donald Trump signed during his first few days in office and the control that various DC mayors -- including Muriel Bowser -- afford developers, I'm guessing that the Trump-Bowser relationship will not be anything like the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship. It's more likely that Trump will be a "politically abusive husband" and Bowser will be that wife who stays, complains about the political butt-kicking and seems to be loving every minute of it -- because she stays...in contact and in a "working" relationship with the non-prez. After all, she'll be able to blame various draconian, gentrifying policies on the Trump administration in much the same way that she blamed former mayor Vince Gray for the 14% increase in homeless people during her first year in office. She'll be able to complete the local business community's 20-year plan for gentrification while blaming the non-president who (like an abusive husband) won't heed her cries anyway. In the meantime, the average ignoramus will sympathize with the mayor as she laughs them to scorn. That said, their political marriage is one in which the wife is the devious but rational one, while Trump (like an abusive husband) is both the victim of rabid emotion and the more powerful partner -- these two attributes of his not being good bedfellows.
It would seem that the singular area in which Trump has been most consistent is his total disdain for all things intelligent. As president-(s)elect he said that he wanted to close the U.S. Dept. of Education. He has also denied the findings of 17 intelligence agencies that indicated that Russia hacked the DNC website. He denies the science of climate change; and, as if the feds going after the likes of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden were not enough, Trump has taken to all but dismantling the EPA lest it tell any more truths about how we are destroying the planet.
The non-president has thus far proven to be even better at implementing policies of "buridiocy" in his current home of Washington, DC -- but not beyond 1/20/21, hopefully. He's already taking steps to reverse the DC law that previously forbade common citizens from owning handguns and more recently was altered so as to place very stringent restrictions on handgun ownership. Oddly enough, he also wants to reverse a new local law that allows for assisted suicide. Let's also factor in that, in the past couple of years the DC Jail has not been full to capacity, due to the decriminalization of marijuana, which has led to discussions around bringing more educational and job-training programs into the space that is no longer being occupied by inmates. Finally, let's consider that, in the past three or so years, I've not had my subway ride interrupted by a suicidal jumper in another station.
Taken together, this means that, while very ill people won't be allowed to have their suffering ended by a doctor, many more unsuspecting victims will have their lives ended by murderers who then fill the empty beds at the jail and force the educational and employment programs back out -- part of a national trend, by all means. All of this will give DC's bourgeoisie and elitist class -- as well as the mayor -- all the fodder they need to disparage the poor and to say that the city has done all that it can and should do for its poor, respectively. This will serve as justification for de-funding and eventually dismantling social services -- which the Trump administration and current congress are already working on at the national level.
I'm guessing that the DC will figure out by mid-June 2017 that Congress has cut so much of the $3B that the city gets from the feds -- out of a $13B budget -- that the DC Council won't be able to replace the entirety of lost federal dollars for social services with local dollars. Muriel Bowser will have a legitimate reason for cutting some social services. However, that won't excuse her for liking it, failing to fight it effectively or taking other steps whereby to expedite the process of gentrification.Muriel Bowser, as the smarter wife, doesn't come out so blatantly against intelligence. She's more underhanded and manipulative -- and thus, more difficult to figure out (like any wife who remains with an abusive husband -- real or political). But don't be deceived by her cute smile or her considerable display of charisma. She's counting on the general public not to ask the right questions -- questions that would tease out her intentions. In 2046 when she turns 74, she'll watch the news about the last of her leases for smaller family shelter expiring, call former mayor Fenty whose protege she is and exclaim in the words of Rocky, "Yo Adrian, we did it!!!". In the more immediate future, she'll take her kickbacks from developers for vacating the valuable DC General Hospital-turned-shelter -- irrespective of whether or not she gets re-elected (which no mayor has done since I moved to DC in 2005).
Bowser is, no doubt, elated that the elitists who are coming out against her family shelter replacement plan aren't yet asking what will become of the vacated hospital and may be hoping that they never will. As the non-president whom she politically (albeit secretly) espouses takes active steps to tear down anything that represents intelligence or critical thought, the "victimized" wife is likely glad for the dumbing down of America and the apparent distraction that abides less than five blocks from her office. Two peas in a pod. Let's not forget that Adrian Fenty (who gave Bowser her political start) planned to make DC a "world-clASS city when he took office in 2007 and then lost his re-election bid -- at least, in part, due to ignoring racial and income disparities. (It remains to be seen as to how much more her legacy will mimic his.)
So, we have a non-president who is tearing down all things intelligent and whose executive orders may lead to him single-handedly eradicating the remnant of credibility and respect that the "Untied" States have in the world. He might even be given the go-ahead by Congress to carpet bomb ISIS into oblivion and further destabilize the world with an endless war on terror. Bowser just wants to give away a piece of public property so that it can be torn down, as she waits for Trump-induced budgetary constraints to give her the reason she so desperately wants and needs in order to justify tearing down the remnant of DC's social safety net. Tearing it down together. Two peas in a pod.
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