It’s begun

I tuned out The Inauguration. (As much as was possible considering my employer was watching it on a fifty-two inch TV in his office.) It didn’t even take an hour before history was being rewritten. That is, history was being made. But that wasn’t good enough. It needed to be bigger, better. It needed to be tweaked. The news reported their version. The Hegemony reported theirs. And then they warned that there could be a rethinking of the administration’s relationship with the press if they didn’t go along with the better, tweaked version. I guess that the press will soon have to stick to approved facts in their reporting. Or give equal time to alternate facts.

I was told that the new administration had already torn down everything Obama. So I went to whitehouse.gov to see for myself. It was true. All the issues that Obama was fighting for were gone and now there are only six issues that the white house considers top issues: energy; foreign policy, jobs, military, law enforcement, and trade. Each issue has its own page which goes into details on how each will be handled. I know that they are just briefs. But as I read them, they didn’t make much sense. I’ll summarize.

Energy. Deregulate and burn anything that you find. Reap (rape?) all public lands but leave no ashes. OPEC is the enemy. But there are other enemies that we can work with. The EPA should stick to protecting the environment so the “future can become a reality.”

Foreign Policy. “Peace through strength” blah…blah…blah…”a stronger and more respected America.” Because everyone respects a bully, right?

Jobs. Cut taxes, deregulate, renegotiate. Something about “American … backbone … show … we mean business … consequences.”

Military. By any account the US has the largest, in terms of forces and budget, military on the planet. But it’s a priority to make it bigger, big league. All I can figure is that he wants to go to war with someone. Or maybe threatening nukes, when you actually have launch codes, is the ultimate bully-trip.

Law Enforcement. More police, more enforcing, more guns, and a big wall. “It is the first duty of government to keep the innocent safe.” We already know that in their eyes the only true innocents are the ‘pre-born’. So I guess I know what they’re talking about here.

Trade. Get out of old deals to make new deals to crack down on deal-breakers to bring back jobs. Only who’s going to want to make new deals with us if we break our old deals? And without any deals, are there going to be any new jobs? “With a lifetime of negotiating experience,… the President is appointing the toughest and smartest”. He’s not going to personally do it then. So, when it all goes south, he can throw someone else under the bus.

Anybody else feel like halving an existentialist crisis? I’ll happily share mine.