Sweet Revenge…. It was seven or eight years ago, and a fair distance from home, that Mr. Gripes experienced the moment when a victory by a persona like Donald Trump became inevitable.
Reminiscing a bit, in those days I had a lot of free time, so I’d travel down South or into the Midwest to tour minor league baseball parks: for six or seven days, I’d drive from one city to another – usually small obscure towns – to attend one game per day, typically at night. A lot of driving ensued: I opted to travel on roads no longer used much, essentially devoid of automobiles, as newer, brawnier federal highways had superseded the older, crumbling thoroughfares.
I was on one of these sojourns, probably in 2010 or 2011, motoring one early evening from South Carolina to Augusta. It was a typically beautiful Carolina summer night, with a full moon dramatically looming through my windshield, amidst gorgeous pines lining the road. Suddenly, I noticed through a thicket of brush and tall grass, a completely empty building – a factory, for sure – on the side of the highway. Nothing stirred, just that imposing structure – and an enormous deserted parking lot adjoining the plant. It was deathly quiet -- I parked and took it all in for several minutes.
It was a very somber, sad sight: the formerly frenetic business of the factory – it had been a ‘textile’ manufacturing plant – must have formerly employed hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals. Now? Nothing but a relic. It resembled a tomb.
Fifteen miles later, another empty factory, vines growing up its walls. I counted about ten or so factories along that road, within 50 miles, all idle.
And, then, in an instant, I was struck, as if I were slapped across my face, by an epiphany: these low-to- middle-income workers, undoubtedly loyal employees for years, after the decision was made to move the plants overseas, were discarded and cast aside as if they were used Kleenex. Bill Clinton with his misconceived NAFTA mess, the large corporations backing the free-trade pacts, and the uncaring political/plutocratic classes, didn’t give one sh_t about these people. Once their employers closed the plants, the laid-off workers were stranded and abandoned, as if they were road-kill. They were betrayed.
Yes, at that moment, I just felt in my gut – I knew! –someday these furious workers, and others in similar circumstances all over the country, eviscerated by very powerful, implacable forces aligned against them, would one day exact a harsh punishment on the perpetrators. It took a long time, and I had no idea in what form it would take, but Donald Trump’s victory last week surely must have been sweet, sweet revenge to those forgotten workers.
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Now allow me to relate to you, my readers, some of my post-election impressions:
Mr. Gripes understands perfectly well you’re as fatigued as I am regarding the length, idiocy and vituperation of this past Presidential campaign, but there’s no way in hell it’s going to change: the networks, i.e., CNN, NBC, CBS, FOX, MSNBC, every one of them, benefit financially so extravagantly from an elongated campaign cycle, and because the networks are the main disseminators, by far, of political news to citizens, they will never advocate anything shorter. The manner in which our political campaigns play out is a disgrace to the American democratic process, but we’re stuck with it for a long, long time.
Donald Trump, early in the cycle, complained after a 2-1/2 hour Republican debate that CNN should have shared in the advertising profits coming out of that network telecast. He was absolutely right: CNN broadcast that ridiculously long debate, for one reason: to boost its advertising dollars, knowing that Donald Trump was a ratings bonanza. Overall, CNN, incredibly, made an additional $100 million during the 2016 election cycle, compared to a non-Presidential cycle. It would serve a network like CNN no fiduciary purpose to shorten campaigns, even though it would serve the national interest to in fact truncate the whole process; but it just isn’t going to happen. As always in this country, the harsh realities of the markets rule.
Now to the actual campaign:
The most trenchant analysis post-election that Mr. Gripes ran across? ‘Hillary Clinton forgot that 70% of this country is still white.’ What the hell were Ms. Clinton and her acolytes thinking? Why did the Clinton campaign spend so much time beseeching voting blocs she already had locked up? For example, going around and speaking to women’s groups about shattering the ‘glass ceiling’ must have seemed like gorgeous music to her female supporters, but let’s face it, not one of those affluent, educated, upper-class ladies was ever going to vote for Donald Trump. Hillary was invariably treated as if the coronation were only days away. Singing sisterhood encomiums to adoring female audiences turned out to be a gigantic waste of time. She should have been in Wisconsin or Michigan, communicating with disappointed and angry residents. Sure, everything looked swell for her right up until Election Day: then we were treated to a rendition of the fairy tale, ‘The Emperor – in this case, The Empress – Wears No Clothes.’
The media – and I include every one of the most prominent newspapers and networks [except Fox] – were victims of wishful thinking. Their fervent hope was that Ms. Clinton would win, and their advocacy coverage, often without a shred of impartiality, led them to presume some notions that turned out not at all to be true: what about, for instance, the huge ‘get-out-the-vote’ advantage that Ms. Clinton would unleash on Election Day? That didn’t happen. The huge advantage of Hillary’s advertising ad ‘spend’ over Trump’s? All those dollars didn’t help in the end. [Mr. Gripes’ take on political ads? Viewers either ignore them or tune them out very, very quickly.]
A tsunami of Hispanic voters for Ms. Clinton would guarantee victories in some of the swing states? Again, an overstatement: in Florida, 30% of Hispanics supported Trump, giving him the state. I suspect the media was not out in the field actually talking to prospective voters, but basically chatting with only Democratic operatives, who knew the press wished for a Clinton win, and so suckered them with overly optimistic projections that were treated as the Gospel truth.
And let’s not forget the damage that Bill Clinton inflicted: the tape revealing Mr. Trump bragging about his predations on women hurt him certainly, but the Republican ploy to bring back before the 2nd debate all the women that Mr. Clinton had preyed upon was a brilliant counter-punch to the gut: after all, Hillary, to save her husband’s and her own political careers, had savaged these same women back in 1992. A lot of undecided women leaning to Trump but upset with the tape revelations and consequently more open-minded about Hillary, might have reasoned, ‘Yeah, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump are pigs, but is Hillary really that much better?; she was her husband’s enabler. It’s a wash. I’m voting for Trump.’
The campaign was just one misstep after another after another….what a colossal screw-up.
And, finally just before I ride off to a Thanksgiving feast in northern New Jersey, a few words on what a Trump presidency might look like: first of all, I’m not going to prejudge Mr. Trump; let’s see what he’s got to offer. A couple of things are in his favor: he’s a pragmatist, not a prisoner of ideology; I think he’s an adaptive person. Second, he’s appears not to be another double-talking, dissembling, devious, pusillanimous politician the likes of which we all are sick of. He’s a builder, so he revels in ‘big’ works; that spirit of audacity is something this country needs desperately in its leaders. So, we’ll just have to see what transpires.
Now to some of Mr. Gripes’ doubts and fears: Mr. Trump apparently is going to proceed with a ‘trickle-down’ stimulus to the economy – you know the drill: huge tax reductions will lead to increased business profits, which will lead to increased tax revenues, and, voila, lower deficits. It doesn’t work: Reagan tried it, and deficits soared. George Bush 2nd tried it, it failed then, too, and we were saddled with huge deficits again. And, Trump is going to try for a third time? Moronic.
Mr. Gripes prays that Donald Trump does not take the muscular interventionist approach to international disputes. Again, we’ve tried this, in the Korean War, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and it’s been a complete failure: not only has America lost prestige and power across the world, but, maybe worse, its own citizens have lost faith in the American system as well. All of us have been beaten up by asinine and wrong-headed Presidential presumptions about the world. President Trump, please show some forbearance, judiciousness and caution before you meddle and bomb.
Jim Israel, aka ‘Mr. Gripes’
November 24, 2016
Hillary & Bill – Here’s how the conversation between Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have transpired a few years ago:
Hillary: ‘Now, listen, Bill, I’m too busy flying all over the world shaking hands with blood-on-their-hands dictators and autocrats to pay any attention to the foundation, so it’s all on you: yes, raise as much money as you’d like for the [Clinton] Foundation, but do it all on the up-and-up. No shenanigans, OK?’
Bill: ‘Of course, honey. I’ll be on my best behavior – nothing for you to worry about, I promise.’
Sure enough, Hillary trusted Slick Willie again, and he betrayed her once more. You’d think she learned her lesson about her husband after Monica. Not a chance. Bill Clinton, Mr. Gripes asserts, starts off with good intentions, then his immense ego gets the best of him again. He has to be #1 in everything: raising more money for charity than Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg becomes a competition, his foundation begins taking short cuts, and soon skirting the law is a normal procedure. Hillary then announces a run for the Presidency. Boom! The anti-Hillary contingent, and it’s huge, took dead aim at the foundation. Sometimes, the Clintons are so dense, so stupid: how could they not have seen this total mess coming? They should have minded their ‘P’s and ‘Q’s on every front. But, let’s face it, Bill has never been careful: he’s always in some kind of disarray and chaos. That’s his DNA.
‘I gotta pay our bills…’ That’s exactly what Bill Clinton asserted, when asked if he was going to cease making speeches now that his wife was running for President. Rings a bell, eh? Sure it does. Hillary Clinton, on her infamous book tour a year or so ago, tells reporters that she and her husband ‘were dead broke’ after leaving the White House. She never mentioned that, at the time of Bill’s departure, they owned one townhouse in upscale Georgetown in DC, and another residence in Westchester County, both homes together worth about $4 million. Amazing, isn’t it? Essentially, both Bill and Hillary invoked the same lame ‘woe-is-me-we’ve got no money’ defense; a statement like Bill’s makes the 99.999% of us who are less affluent very, very irate: no one wants to hear about a couple with a net worth of at least $105 million anguishing over their cable bill. Talk about a disconnect with the public. Sometimes Bill and Hillary are as blind as a belfry full of bats.
The Prime Minister and Pig Tails – Perhaps my readers know about this incident: a dining Prime Minister of Australia pulls on the pigtails of an attending waitress in a restaurant. It caused a stir in that country, as well it should. The prime minister, of course, says it was all done in a playful manner. Mr. Gripes, though, offers another conceivable mindset of the PM: first, men – not all, but most – do, on occasion, lose their minds over women. We, and I’m speaking for the male-idiot gender now, are wired that way. That in no manner excuses Mr. Prime Minister’s behavior – after all, he should be a mature, judicious fellow who is capable of controlling his libidinous tendencies, and his impulses.
But, there’s something else possibly going on here: this elected official, the most powerful single politician in the country, probably worth a good deal of money, has had many opportunities to meet women during his political career. And, many women have been attracted to him, considering his status and power. Women have always been accessible, so it’s not been hard for him to be ‘successful’ with them. In fact, finding women has not been a problem at all; he doesn’t have to work at it. Courtship? Bang-bang is his preference. He naturally begins to think that women are essentially commodities, to be trifled with and played with, nothing more. The cute waitress with the pigtails was just another potential girl-toy for Mr. Big. Mr. Big just knew there’d be no consequences. Ergo, a grin, a laugh, and a pull on the pigtails. No one ever had told him before what a disgusting pig he actually is.
Baltimore – What Mr. Gripes will write shortly will undoubtedly distress some of his liberal friends, I’m sure: those ‘protestors’ who tore up and looted that Baltimore neighborhood in the aftermath of a black man’s death in the custody of the police ought to be caught and charged with serious felonies. The vast majority of those individuals, when they chose to set afire and/or obliterate 200 [!!] businesses in the area, are, if I may put it bluntly, low-life thugs and criminals who have managed to destroy the lives of many, many of their neighbors, now former proprietors of storefront businesses. Those small businesses, many without insurance, aren’t coming back.
Even the larger commercial enterprises won’t be returning; do you actually believe that the gutted, eviscerated CVS store will ever be rebuilt by its corporate owners? I seriously doubt it. Why would CVS invest a ton of money in another store that may very well be destroyed again during the next riot? And, so what if CVS is white- and corporate-owned? It served a very real purpose in the community: dispensing essential medicinal drugs to residents. The elderly, for sure, must have depended on a pharmacy that was located nearby. The looters, of course, didn’t think of that when the store was razed to the ground. Running off with a couple of cases of Coke was their sole intent. Rage is not ever an excuse for wanton and criminal behavior. Find the perpetrators and arrest them.
Gaudy ‘Gala’ at the Met – There’s been an annual fundraiser taking place for the Metropolitan Museum of Art here in New York around this time of year for decades. Once upon a time, the grandees of New York Society attended, and wrote substantial checks for the museum – a Rockefeller, Harriman and investment bank big-shots would certainly be in attendance. It was a genteel and decorous affair, without a great deal of pomp or flash.
Not any more -- 2015’s version took place last night in the Costume Institute of the Met – it’s all about big gowns and statuesque, virtually naked celebrities. Mr. Gripes was astounded to see pictorials of the affair in today’s newspapers. And, to be honest, the photographs were appalling.
The Metropolitan Museum is one of the great repositories of world art and antiquities. You could take a week and not see everything there. So, it should be treated with the utmost courtesy and respect. There’s no chance of that these days: this event now resembles a chorus girl dance line.
You see, it’s all about commercialism now. The old-time stuffed-shirt bankers are shuffled aside, out of sight. Fashion designers pay big money to have celebrities wear their most outrageous gowns at affairs like this. And, the museum undoubtedly receives huge donations from the fashion houses on display. Scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. It’s all so unseemly.
But no more serious-issue stuff. Let’s get to the clothes and the ladies:
Rihanna, who I’ll wager wouldn’t know the difference between a Warhol and a Rembrandt, and cares less, essentially wore nothing under her ensemble, if that’s what you call her outfit. Imagine that: a young lady prancing naked amidst the caverns of the Temple of Dendur at the Met.
Jennifer Lopez? Her dress, with its innumerable slits and openings, conjured up one image immediately: a very high-class, expensive hooker working the $5,000-minimum blackjack tables in Steve Wynn’s casino.
But the piece-de-resistance [see link below] of the evening has to go to Sarah Jessica Parker: she had atop her head some kind of head piece, the sight of which nearly knocked Mr. Gripes off his dining room perch: a flaming, gargoyled, Dairy Queen-like swirl that rose mightily about two or three feet in the air. And, along with that, she wore enough caked-on makeup to suffocate a rhinoceros. Initially, I thought, ‘This calamity looks like someone who is about to attend a Dark Ages pagan sacrifice ritual to appease the Gods. No, wait one second: Ms. Parker may indeed be the reincarnation of the goddess Medusa.’
The demise of Western civilization marches on, unrestrained and unabated.
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-style/news/sarah-jessica-parker-wears-gigantic-flaming-headdress-met-gala-2015-201545
Jim Israel
Mr. Gripes
May 5, 2015
