The Shell Game and “The Bank Dick”

Within the past few days, the House of Representatives of the Congress of the faking USA passed a republican-written resolution (H.R. 5698) which they titled “The Protect and Serve Act of 2018” and which is also known as another “Blue Lives Matter” Act. This unnecessary legal emphasis is designed to reassure the police and “their representatives” that any resistance which they might encounter can be treated with more brutal intolerance and the Congress will have their backs.

The resolution was quickly presented to the judiciary committee and there was a report (H. rept. 115 – 672) by what is called the minority opposition added by 8 democrats on that committee. That opposition statement distinctly stated that the resolution was “unnecessary” and that it was offensive because it represents another example of congressional indifference to the offensiveness of the continuing examples of police violence against citizens and especially against minority communities and that it is likely to further increase anger within those communities. The report also states that the resolution ignores the “necessary reforms” which are needed to counterbalance the numerous examples of police brutality.

The 8 congresspersons who signed this disapproval within the judiciary committee are,

Nadler

Lofgren

Jackson Lee

Chen

Johnson Jr.

Richmond

Cicillini

Jayapal

and one might assume that because of their clearly enunciated expression of indignation that this might indicate a strong opposition to the the recent examples of police brutality by the democrats in the House.

This assumption was then quickly proven hollow by the majority of house democrats and the extent of that misrepresentation is most clearly emphasized by the fact that, of the eight supposed voices of opposition from the judiciary committee, 6 voted for the resolution, one was “absent,” and one, Jayapal, voted against the endorsement of more police intolerance.

The house quickly endorsed the resolution by a bipartisan vote of 382 to 35 and the shells in this rigged gambling casino are now in the hands of the Senate. The possible Senate version (S. 2794) which has been “Hatch”ed so far distinctly differs from the house assault because it has as its first co-sponsor Heidi Heitkamp. She is commonly described as a “moderate” democrat. I guess that her strong displays of admiration for the majority of what Trump and the republicans seek – including votes such as for Gorsuch, Pompeo, Bolton, Haspel, Bank deregulation… is “moderate”d by the feminist makeup which she and her fellow democrats wear to disguise their “more effective evil.”

There is nothing “moderate” about Heidi Heitkamp’s devotion to corporate control and to the tortured manipulations which she uses as to promote her actions. This doesn’t mean that she is anything except a typical democrat and republican. The only reason I am focused on her at this point is because she is consistently participating in the worst aspects of the bipartisan scheming which the democrats insist is not really what they support – as they take turns finding ways to make it happen. When asked why she consistently supports so much of (what we are told to believe is) “Trump’s” agenda, she has responded that what she is doing is representing the wishes of her constituents in North Dakota. Apparently, based upon Heitkamp’s (and the overwhelming majority of the Senate’s) insistence that the Russians manipulated the 2016 election and caused Trump to win, we can now assume that North Dakota is an outpost in Siberia and is overrun with Russian agents and the members of congress from North Dakota have no option but to be subservient to the proudly Russian agenda of their constituents. I guess this makes as much sense as the notion that democrats are an opposition party. The old question arises, How can you be in two places at once, when you are NOWHERE at all? God forbid that another republican might take Heitkamp’s current seat – it might mean that there would possibly be a difference! How would one know? Perhaps Heidi Heitkamp is determined to give the North Dakotans their just desserts because she thinks they deserve to be punished for putting Trump in office and maybe she thinks that her banker brotherhood has her great future in mind. At any event, human rights are not of any real importance to either arm of the corporate cyclops known as the Congress and Ms. Heitcamp has made herself look like a poster child for providing more abusiveness on numerous fronts.

All of this debauchery has me remembering the antics of W.C. Fields in the old film called “the Bank Dick.” Fields was a very skilled vaudevillian performer who had an exceptional ability at juggling and he had developed a character in his performances who was a bumbling, misanthropic who stumbled from one shaky and startling encounter to another while almost desperately relying on the moderating effects of alcohol and cigarettes to sooth his jarred nervousness. 

In “The Bank Dick,” which Fields wrote and which was loaded with pun-names for the characters – such as Souse for himself and which he insisted be pronounce with the “accent grave over the ‘e” – he inadvertently and mistakenly is seen as a hero who stopped a robbery and is then awarded a job as a security guard at a bank where his daughter’s fiance’ is employed. Because of Souse’s reckless gambling and debt, he draws his future son-in-law into a scheme of embezzling money from the bank (Why does this seem so relevant today?!). The inopportune arrival of a bank auditor provides the main comic tension, but, of course, the story turns around and ,in the end, providence smiles upon the lives of his family and Field’s character’s fortune provides the means of doing what he most wants to do, hang out at the Black Pussy cat Cafe (a saloon).

I cannot tell you why my foolish brain would lead me to think about this movie at this time, except to say that W.C. Fields’ character might epitomize how I view most politicians. This perception was much more pronounced when I used to be subjected to watching William Jefferson Clinton on a regular basis, but Trump is as another distortedly pernicious echo and neither is funny. Perhaps it is a foolish hope on my part that the deceitful actions of these bipartisan corporate owned characters in Washington could someday, somehow, inexplicably,  be revealed as comic. Right now, however, I do not see any reason for hope and I do not see anything comic about what they are doing. What I see is a dreadful bipartisan neo-fascism loaded with deliberate conniving and misrepresentation across what some tell me is a spectrum. This imagined spectrum appears to be as wide as the laser pinpointing on a sniper’s gun which is being used to silence those of us with less economic power and who still cling to our notions that equal justice and a healthy global environment are possible (unless we can prove that we are willing to cut our losses and join the church of personal rude greediness).

Saying, “Godfrey Daniel!” does help me forget the reality of the corruption for a tiny moment, but I do not think I’ll ever be a good juggler.