September 1, 2019
I have often wondered who is benefiting the most, Hubris or me, when I currycomb him. Every Monday morning I devote about an hour to using the curry on Hubris to clean and bring oils up to the skin of my best (animal) friend. Animal therapy, as well as person to person therapy, is a two way street. Both benefit from the shared giving and taking. While I am currying Hubris, I always talk to him (or myself) in a very soft, melodious voice. Hubris sometimes answers with a soft whinny and a slow head shake as if to tell me that he understands everything I’m saying. I find myself benefitting from my ‘time out’ to take and give care to my friend. That’s what I was doing early last Monday morning when I had the following thoughts;
I fantasized that I was able to make myself invisible and to be transported magically to anywhere in the world I wanted to go! Maybe I should have studied Zen and found a real Garuda Bird? This past week, if I had those qualities, I would have been at the G7 meeting in the south of France, secretly listening to what I suspect were six serious adults trying to discuss how to keep the world economic ship afloat and one petulant child bragging about his ability to swim in troubled waters. If our child-President gets through that week without insulting all six adults, Congress should give him the ‘Congressional Metal of Dis-belief’ for his dubious and unexpected restraint! What also might happen is that the six adults have finally realized they would be dealing with a petulant child and would temper their meetings with him accordingly.
Just as a reminder, the G7 membership is composed of: the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada. All are members of the elite top 10 economies of the world and I have listed them in the order of their relative economic size. The USA is #1 and Canada is #10. However, the G7 doesn’t include: China, the 2nd largest economy in the world, India, the 6th largest, or Brazil, the 9th largest. I tried (but failed) to find the ratio of each G7 country’s national debt to their GNP (Gross National Product) because that ratio is the most significant indicator of future financial chaos for that country. However, the USA has the largest amount of federal debt and Japan has the highest ratio of federal debt to GNP (almost 2.5 times). I suspect that, if I had been able to find the current numbers, the G7 should be re-named the ‘DDL7’ for ‘Dangerous Debt Level 7’ instead of ‘Group of 7’. I’m willing to bet 10 to 1 that the majority of the conversation (but not reported) at their meeting was devoted to the question of how much longer they can sustain such debt levels and keep their currency printing presses running before time runs out and the world’s economic ship capsizes and sinks under the destabilizing weight of their national, corporate and personal debt levels.
I hesitate to think how our fearless and freckles President will conduct himself during such a conversation. For a man-child who thinks that size is important, Trump just might develop a ‘top of the totem pole’ swagger just because his country has the largest debt of all the G7 members! (Sorry friends, Trump is really that stupid!) And really, it is almost impossible to predict how he will conduct himself in any significant environment. I think Facebook and Twitter would go broke, the Republican Party would impeach him, the New York Times would cease publication, and ‘Moscow Mitch’ would have a heart attack—if Donald Trump ever did anything rational.
These are very ‘interesting’ times and definitely not the time(s) to have an inept, impetuous, arrogant, and ego-centric fool as the President of the United States. The United States electorate got what it deserved when it didn’t pay close attention to the past actions of either major party’s presidential candidate in the 2016 election. It’s a bit late to recall the old saying that definitely should be applied in evaluating candidates for public office, “The past is prologue!” now that we are up to our collective necks in alligators and the person who promised to drain the swamp turns
out to be an alligator breeder.
And, our inept, corrupt, big-money driven, and should-be-obsolete, ‘Two Party System’ goes on pretending total lack of responsibility for their failure to provide viable options of quality leadership to a know-nothing and care-less electorate. I am forced to rely again on my main source of political wisdom, the cartoonist-songwriter Walt Kelly, who summed up our political reality by having one of his cartoon characters explain the lack of political wisdom in our electorate during the Nixon administration by saying, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”
Looking at the other side of the political ledger, the situation in the over-crowded field of democratic candidates for their 2020 presidential nomination contest looks more like a bunch of privileged children at a Mexican birthday party, blindfolded, taking turns swinging a broom stick at a Trump-like piñata, than a contest for nomination by one of the two parties in the contest for the presidency of the United States. Whoever can ‘break’ the piñata gets the nomination. I guess I will have to despair of ever hearing a meaningful dialogue in one of our political ‘debates’. Nevertheless, I’d rather hold on to my ‘hope springs eternal’ belief in my fellow man (and woman) that someday, the ability to project sound, reasonable, and responsible thinking—and provide the guarantee to act the same way when in office—will matter in the selection of our candidates for public office. The next section of the ‘debates’ are some time away but, in the meantime, my fingers are crossed and I’ll keep my money in my pocket.
Hubris just suggested that I stop wasting my time throwing verbal rocks at our defunct political ‘system’ and political office ‘debasers’, or even thinking about using my money—that
should be used to purchase quality Kentucky bourbon or home-grown alfalfa hay—on political campaigners. When I stopped laughing I felt so good I saddled up Hubris and with a hearty shout of Hi Ho Hubris, Aawaay! we are off on the ditch banks along the Rio Grande for our Friday evening ride.
Lou
Copyright, September 1, 2019, Louis J. Christen