TOM ENGELHARDT: The American Century Ends Early
Like Gregor Samsa, the never-to-be-forgotten character in Franz Kafka’s story “The Metamorphosis,” we awoke on January 7th to discover that we, too, were “a giant insect” with “a domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments” and numerous “pitifully thin” legs that “waved helplessly” before our eyes. If you prefer, though, you can just say it: we opened our eyes and found that, somehow, we had become a giant roach of a country.
Yes, I know, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are now in charge
and waving their own little limbs wildly, trying to do some of what needs to be done for this sad land
of the disturbed, over-armed, sick, and dying. But anyone who
watched the scenes of Floridians celebrating a Super Bowl victory, largely unmasked and
cheering, shoulder to shoulder in the streets of Tampa, can’t help but realize
that we are now indeed a roach nation, the still-wealthiest, most pandemically
unmasked one on Planet Earth.
But don’t just blame Donald Trump. Admittedly, we’ve just
passed through the Senate trial and acquittal of the largest political
cockroach around. I’m talking about the president who, upon discovering that his vice president was in danger of being “executed” (“Hang Mike Pence!“) and was being rushed out of the Senate
as a mob bore down on him, promptly tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the
courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our
Constitution.”
Just imagine. The veep who had - if you don’t mind my mixing
my creature metaphors here - toadied up to the president for four endless years
was then given a functional death sentence by that same man. You can’t fall
much deeper into personal roachdom than that.….
https://tomdispatch.com/the-american-century-ends-early/
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