Pierce: As 2019 Ends, I Have to Wonder Whether Everything I've Learned Is Wrong
As 2019 Ends, I Have to Wonder Whether Everything I've Learned Is Wrong
Optimism is something we have to work for again.
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
DEC 31, 2019
So the year of Our Lord 2019 ends in the year of Our Lord 1979. An angry mob invades and occupies an American embassy in the Middle East. Unfortunately, this time around, the President* of the United States is an intellectually cramped know-nothing of a vulgar talking yam. From the Washington Post:
“So notified!” With! an! exclamation! point! And issued through El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago’s official news platform, where it shares space with cat photos and polls for Album of the Year. I’m sure the Iraqi security forces, who apparently jumped into the breach, and who now are caught in a three-sided nutcracker between local public outrage, militia violence, and American whatever-the-hell-we’re-doing, are reassured that they are now So! Notified!
This is the year now in which we decide for the foreseeable future what kind of government we want. But, while we’re making up our woolly minds about it, the world is rolling on. Australia literally is burning down. In Europe, the EU is falling apart and people are slapping on armbands again. The Middle East is what it’s been for 40 years—a hot, angry region in which we truly have no place and no idea what to do there. This is a really bad time for American democracy to be deciding whether it wants to go into the future merely as an extended exercise in performance art.
Optimism is not exactly something that’s just lying around on the floor, waiting to be picked up. It’s something we have to work for again. It’s a heavy lift, but a necessary one. All we have as we enter 2020 is, well, us. In 1979, I was just starting out in this racket and there was so much I didn’t know about anything. As 2019 ends, I have come to wonder if everything I’ve learned is wrong. An open question for the opening of the new year. Comfort and joy to you all from all of us.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a30369597/us-embassy-iraq-protests-trump-iran/
= new reply since forum marked as read
foreign hybrid insurgency. So all we can do is react and speculate, since we're left in the dark because this prez in no way feels obligated to communicate with the country at large. Maybe he's working on his "story" to the nation while golfing.
The Military Times calls this a proxy war, and that no embassy personnel are reported hurt. Proxy for whom is the question. Russia, yes, but... ?
Then there's this, the obvious. Yes, MF45 would do it, or plays that he would do it.
Pierce lets his panoramic view of the world's problems overwhelm him. He reacts normally to abnormal times and really doesn't say what he's learned that's all wrong, anyway. It's not his best piece, but maybe he's on deadline.
Thanks for the news. I wasn't aware. I do hope he fully recovers, no matter his outlook. 