Alan Arkin Played a Russian

     I've noticed a despair in those anti-Trump citizens who had hope in a different outcome last November.  The big Hillary Clinton rally planned in New York showed a crowd of quiet, shocked people on the evening of November 8, when their candidate wasn't pulling ahead of the hated opponent.  She was like a race car stalling three-fourths of the way through the race; everyone had expected her to win, even those working for the other side.  Trump and his close associates, including family members, have admitted they were surprised by the election's results.  Now, with great attention in the news media paid to the "Russian hack," Vladimir Putin and his nefarious intelligence machine can be blamed for Trump's victory, for Clinton's humiliation in losing to a sexist pig with no morals.
     John Locke, played by Terry O'Quinn in the TV show Lost, says that he doesn't need hope after he and the other survivors of the plane crash have found themselves on a deserted island.  Of hope, he says, "I stopped looking for it."  Thus, he found himself, by letting the chaos of the situation run his life from then on.  Such fatalism can be found in combat soldiers who live day by day, knowing that at any minute they might get killed or maimed, that a situation of health, high or low spirits, of humor with one's comrades, might instantly turn into a time of danger, mindless survival, and blood-shedding.  World War Two's most decorated American soldier, Audie Murphy (who became a Hollywood actor), had this fatalistic streak in his character.  Arguably, that's what made him do his heroic deeds.  He didn't think about what might be, but about what is.
     Regardless of the victor of the 2016 presidential election, each American must deal with the consequence.  I've heard the phrase, "We're all doomed," as applied to the upcoming Trump administration.  I aver that if Clinton had won, wars would have still continued, arms dealers and manufacturers would still be profiting from misery and destruction, the oil-based economy ruining the environment would still be running smoothly under Hillary Clinton.  Now, it looks like the Democrats want to exacerbate tensions with Russia, a move coinciding, perhaps, with a desire to shift bad guys from traditional terrorists to Russia.  Syria shows that the U.S. and Russia both attack terror groups and also arm them in a bewildering situation neither Trump nor Clinton ever bothered to explain to voters.  Obama doesn't attack Assad, Syria's ruler, and neither do the Russians, who directly support him.  Assad fights ISIS, that terror group fought by the U.S. and Russia, but supported by Saudi Arabia, itself supported by the U.S. in its depredations against the Yemeni people, a people also attacked intermittently over the years by the U.S.  The entire Middle East is a playground where high tech nations make war on low tech groups, using them against each other.  When former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was asked on 60 Minutes about how many wars the U.S. is currently engaged in, he laughed, the kind of chuckle that one associates with, "Gee whiz, that's a good question."
     Even a top level cabinet position Defense Secretary (albeit a former one) doesn't know what the fuck is going on in the "spheres of interest" concerning U.S. military-industrial powers.  From these same kinds of "expert" echelons, we're supposed to accept without question the idea that Hillary Clinton isn't going to be the president because Putin and his computer-wielding employees managed to swing the election with "fake news."  Did Putin convince Clinton not to campaign in Wisconsin?  Did she, in fact, make many stumblebum moves on her own, leading to her defeat?  Wasn't her personality a drawback?  Trump, odious as he is, didn't have the disadvantage Clinton had: a nation already sick of her, going back to the 1990's.  She was nothing new.  She was old guard establishment in a year when the populace at large wanted something else.  I know that Trump lost the popular vote, but in our system, that doesn't matter, right, President Gore?
     I live in the present, I surf this wave.  I know there are obstacles in the water, danger spots.  I've lived through numerous shitty presidential administrations that have made lying into a nearly enshrined habit in cooperation with the news media that enabled them to lie.  This kind of shit will not change, regardless of a Trump or Clinton outcome.  Putin wanted Trump as president instead of Clinton.  Of course he did.  In regard to Putin, Trump is more pliable to Russia's wishes.  The United States does the same kind of thing with other countries, influencing elections, conducting cyber-warfare.  American politicians and top news media commentators are always shocked and outraged when it's found that others in different countries do the same kinds of shitty things to the U.S. that we do to other countries.  It's realpolitik when we do it, evil when they do it.
     I say, fuck em all.  Power players of the world are shits, operating on the shittiest levels of morality.  I don't require their approval or disapproval as I live my life, nor should you.  Trump won the race, but so what?  You still have to tie your shoes in the morning, go to work, shop for groceries, drive safely, communicate with others, be alert to dangers typical and atypical, and besides, it's often the bastards of the world who inspire ordinary people to find their voices.  How often did mild-mannered Obama inspire you to get angry about politics, war, injustice?  You had to dig to find stories about the crimes he's committed, the children he's blown to bits with Hellfire missiles, because the major news media (even Fox) sure weren't talking about that.  Republicans in Congress got bent out of shape about Hillary Clinton's handling of the Benghazi consulate and the four Americans killed there, but they didn't give a shit about the much more brutal all-out war she fomented in Libya to overthrow Gaddafi.
     Goodbye to 2016, a year when two monsters ran for president, the one resembling a Cheeto made of Play-doh winning without the support of the powerless American people.  I expect 2017 to be even more absurd, especially given the blending of news media corporations with power, as we'll see even "liberal" outlets suck up to Trump, mainly by giving him the attention he craves.  None of this shit is going to have an effect on my self-esteem.  I'll continue to live my life, finding my way without worrying about hope, because I stopped looking for that a long time ago.

                                                                                    Vic Neptune