Biblical Travails

Guest Post by Jim Kunstler

It’s looking a little bit like the nation’s attention to the Republican Trump-O-Rama Fest this week will get shoved rudely aside by Hurricane Laura, currently tracking to make a direct hit on New Orleans and then beat a path up the south-central USA, drowning croplands clear into Kentucky and Ohio. The internal quarrels of the GOP will have to take a backseat to disaster relief. It might be a political blessing for the president, unless he blunders through the event George W. Bush style — remember “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,” apropos of then FEMA chief Michael Brown, who herded thousands into the NoLa Superdome, which quickly turned into a Lord of the Flies horror show of administrative incompetence.

I know: just what America needs, another Biblical-scale natural disaster, with Covid-19 apparently fermenting in the air-conditioning units all over Dixieland, and plenty of summertime left to breed up new plagues of mosquito-borne illness in the wake of Laura’s flooding. And, of course, the hurricane season is only beginning. Such are the Jobe-like trials of America as we slide into something that quacks like collapse.

Could the country even stand another full-on political convention after the Democrats’ nauseating extravaganza last week? The nation is so marinated in agitprop, disinfo, and straight-up mendacity that all the intelligence has been leached out of population, perhaps even the will to live. A Republican convention complete with the usual showboating might deplete the remaining oxycontin supply across the land as unemployed millions, mulling over rents overdue and unmet car payments, resort to vodka, Xanax, cough syrup, and airplane glue to quell the pain induced by unbridled political bullshit. As BLM might put it: “Know whum sayin’?

Speaking of BLM, Sunday one Jacob Blake, 29, was apparently shot in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, while getting into a car. The incident inspired a night of BLM rioting and looting in downtown Kenosha, with excellent prospects for violence to spread to other cities. Mr. Blake was hospitalized and survives, so far. He was not complying with police instructions in the process of his arrest. He had been previously arrested in 2015 and charged with brandishing a gun in a barroom. Upon his arrest then, the gun was found on the floor of his car. In the latest incident, Kenosha police were responding to a domestic abuse complaint. There was an active warrant out on Mr. Blake.

Also over the weekend, police in Lafayette, Louisiana, shot and killed 31-year-old Trayford Pellerin outside a convenience store he was entering while brandishing a knife. They had followed him from another convenience store in the vicinity where he “created a disturbance with a knife.” Mr. Pellerin apparently refused to comply with police orders to get on the ground. Ben Crump, a civil rights lawyer hired to represent the Pellerin family during the investigation into the shooting, said, “His family believes that he was suffering a mental illness crisis and what he needed was a helping hand. But what he got was what looks like 11 bullets.” His mother told the Associated Press that Mr. Pellerin had sought therapy for social anxiety.

What to make of all this? The common denominator seems to be that a failure to follow the instructions of police can lead to serious injury or even death, especially if you are carrying a weapon or have a previous arrest record involving a gun. But never mind that inconvenient reasoning. Two fresh martyrs on the scene assure a new round of mostly peaceful protests. The Democratic Party is sure to play up the tragic injustice of police violence against black Americans. The riots and looting will continue until the un-black demographic of America gets its collective mind right and abolishes police altogether. Or, perhaps, instead, decides to not get hustled anymore and votes against the race hustlers.

So far, candidate Joe Biden hasn’t offered any commentary on these incidents. Or on anything else going on since his exhausting performance last Thursday. The Hurricane Laura situation plus the Republican Convention will give him another weekend to rest-up in the basement. Long about mid-September, voters may begin to wonder if his handlers will ever subject him to any public appearance, or scrutiny of the news media — most of which will function anyway as an arm of his campaign press office, with or without the candidate. Sometime in October, if he’s still alive, Mr. Biden may emerge from his hole in the ground like fellow Pennsylvanian, Punxsutawney Phil. If he sees his shadow, it’ll be back to the basement until Nov 3 when the ghastly business is finally over. Or else, and pretty soon, the party will have to anoint a replacement.

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