Are we winning yet?

Brain droppings (with a posthumous nod to George Carlin for the term)

        Apparently one of the new “hot films” at Sundance is an indie entitled “Some Kind of Heaven.”  It is set in The Villages, where we live, and is in some ways simply a poorly conceived pastiche of “Leisureville”, a scurrilous paperback of some years ago. In the case of Leisureville, the author found several oddballs and then extrapolated their behavior to the entire community, which is, I assure you, nothing like it is portrayed.

        The preconceived notion behind Leisureville is that the author believes retired folks should remain in their communities to be role models for younger persons. Of course, what he omits is any mention of the huge number of tutors and mentors, myself among them,  who live in the Villages and serve in neighboring communities in these roles. In point of fact, the spirit of volunteerism here is amazing. Similarly, this is the healthiest, and most active, senior community of its (or any) kind in the world. A Dutch author who spent several months here several years ago dubbed it, in her book, “the happiest place on earth.”
 

        And now to “Some Kind of Heaven”: The filmmaker begins by describing the Villages accurately (and positively), but then chronicles the issues of four residents (out of almost 150,000) whose life here is less than idyllic. See the problem yet? I guarantee that I can, in any group of similar size, find far more than .00026% of said group who have not had the life they wanted or envisioned. Truthfully, for these folks, destined and committed to being miserable, any situation would most likely be unsatisfactory in their estimation. Of course, the unstated reality in both the book and the film is the basic mantra we all tell critics, “If you don’t like it here, move” (almost no one ever does).

       Today’s paper chronicles the visit, yesterday, of Secretary of Stated Mike Pompeo, who spoke to a largely supportive group. What was odd about the speech was the constant reference to “winning.”  I have spent some time trying to decipher what he might mean by the term. It is reminiscent of Trump’s declaration that “We’re gonna win. We’ll win so much” (if he were elected). Obviously, the word “win” has, to Trump, Pompeo, et al, a slippery definition at best.

        Trump bragged about pulling troops out of Kurdistan to allow his Turkish allies free rein to attack Kurds, which they did. This troop withdrawal was publicly ballyhooed even as he was ramping up troop numbers in Afghanistan and Iraq. The same newspaper today acknowledges an additional 20,000 US military personnel being deployed to hostile regions of the Mid-East, even as I type. I hope they “win.”

        Farmers in the Midwest are also far from “winning,” with farmers facing soybean crops which are almost unsaleable because the prime market, China, has been dried up by Trump’s tariff war. China, formerly a consumer of 60% of US soybeans, has found Brazil eager to fill the void - without tariffs. The man who cried crocodile tears over the inability to get $5 billion for the “wall” his bigoted sycophants demanded, has a spent 5 times that much in extra agricultural subsidies (can you say "welfare?") to farmers, crippled by his tariffs, which he continues to claim are “paid” by China.

       An economic dullard, his tariffs are estimated to cost each American household an average of $2,031 this year and, if threatened or scheduled tariffs for next year are imposed, that figure will jump to $3,614 per household. Feel like a winner yet?

        But wait, there’s more. The same Donald Trump who promised to “reduce the deficit immediately and erase the national debt in eight years” (verified quotes) has, instead, increased the debt by about $3 trillion (so far) with a projected $9.1 Trillion increase if he were to serve an eight year term (Odin forbid!). Just as a point of interest, this deficit, unlike his predecessor’s, has been generated with no housing bubble collapse or Great Recession. His response as I have previously reported, was that, when the fiscal excreta hits the fan, “I won’t be here.”

        A winning team must pull together. Trump’s team has been decimated by firings, planned departures, unplanned departures, unfilled posts, indictments and apparently insane legal advice. To compound the debacle, he has alienated most of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, calling them “babies and dopes” while whining that we ought to be making a profit from wars.   

Here are just a few samples from Philip Rucker’s recent “A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America”

“The ineptitude came from the very top. Trump cared more about putting on a show than about the more mundane task of governing. There would be no restraining the grievances Trump felt nor curbing the chaos he created. They could only be managed.”

And: “Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”  This was delivered to the Joint Chiefs Assembled and Rex Tillerson, then Sec. State, was the only person who dared to speak in their defense at the time. It was after this meeting that Tillerson described Trump as “a moron.”

And, in case you haven’t had enough “winning:” “Another senior administration official said, “The guy is completely crazy. The story of Trump: a president with horrible instincts and a senior-level cabinet playing Whack-A-Mole.”

       And finally, the characterization of head and other injuries suffered by some US troops in an Iranian missile attack as “Minor, not significant.”  Interestingly enough, Trump initially reported “No US injuries,” immediately afterward. A cynical individual might pose that Trump, already feeling some heat after assassinating an admittedly heinous Iranian general, was fearful that his Red Hat wearing deplorables might demand further military action.                   

Other than all that It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood