JOSEPH HARRINGTON
Theses on the Eighteenth Brumaire of Donny Napolean
1.
The first time I vote for president, and the winner is who? A mentally-impaired right-wing former media celebrity who proceeds to pack his cabinet with free marketeers and war hawks.
2.
And why would history spare us?
3.
We braced ourselves to be drafted to fight in civil wars in Latin America, on behalf of rightist dictatorships. Anti-“minority” sentiment surged. Social programs were flayed. It was Morning in America.
4.
Americans always think it is earthshattering, if it happens to happen to us. As the death toll on 9/11 rose, the radio told us “Everything Has Changed.”
5.
But it was what, in the third world, they call Another Shitty Day.
6.
Everything hadn’t changed. It hadn’t even changed for us. We’re at war, but we’ve always been at war, declared or undeclared, covert or overt. Google “Iran-Contra.” The robber barons were in control in the late 19th century, too, and many Americans—and others—died of unrestrained capitalism. 125