**********************************

The other day President-elect Donald Trump gathered his cabinet together for a round of golf and some frank talk about America.

A transcript of their conversation in the locker room of Trump National Golf Course in Westchester, NY was leaked to the press:

*******************************

Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary:

Hey, you bitches know Florida, right?

General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, Defense Secretary:

Total smoke show.

Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:

That baby got back!

Mike Pence, Vice President-elect:

Testify!

Donald Trump, President-elect:

I love her coasts. Superb coasts. The best coasties in all of America. I love to get right in there, stick my face in the them and just splash them all around.

Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:

It is no Russian propaganda that you sir, are the the greatest man on the planet!

Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:

You da man! Big dog always huntin’!

Ben Carson, Housing and Urban Development Secretary:

She ever let you into her Everglades?

Donald Trump, President-elect:

Let me tell you, her Everglades are very exclusive, like so, so super exclusive that you wouldn’t even believe, and let me tell you, I have been to her Everglades many, many, many times. She can’t get enough. When I’m with her, I make it rain.

Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:

You’re the RainMaker, sir!

General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, Defense Secretary:

I once had a layover in Delaware. Did some real drilling there, let me tell you, yeah, some real drilling.

Donald Trump, President-elect:

Delaware?! She’s a village bicycle. Disease infested. Strictly bottom-rung. Not even a 6 out of 10.

Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:

Yo, you better get yourself checked by your doctor, could have the crabs.

Donald Trump, President-elect:

“Brain Surgeon!” Give The General here an examination, tell us if Delaware gave him the clap.

Ben Carson, Housing and Urban Development Secretary:

I can tell from here he’s got SDD, Small Dick Disease, and that it’s terminal!

Mike Pence, Vice President-elect:

That sick burn pleases the Lord!!

( High-fives and laughter from all)

Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:

Anyone playing Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare?

Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary:

Fucking rules. Took three Ativan and played it for eight straight hours last night.

Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:

Zombie mode is the tits!

Donald Trump, President-elect:

Okay, okay, girls, let’s focus. Listen up. Okay. There’s a black guy and a Mexican in a car. Who is driving?

(The cabinet is silent)

Donald Trump, President-elect:

The cop!!

(The cabinet howls with laughter!)

Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:

You got to Tweet that one, President-elect!

Donald Trump, President-elect:

Okay, who lost that round of golf? Was it Ross the Loss? No? “Brain Surgeon”? Was it you? Bad Hombre Priebus? No, okay we’ll make it Sloppy Second Pence. Pence you’re today’s loser and have to buy us all dinner. Has to be an exceptional meal, super exceptional, the very best, and if it is, I’ll bring out those Sarah Palin hot tub pics I was telling you about.

It’s a bad movie, a very bad movie, and bad in a way that only a movie made in 1985 can be bad. If you’ll recall, Rocky ends up in Russia to fight Ivan Drago, the invincible Soviet super villain played by Dolph Lundgren.

Various dramatic things happen and Rocky wins, as he does pretty much every second movie. What’s striking about it, beyond how awful, cliched and child-like it is, is how vivid and oppressive the American propaganda is.

America has never been particularly subtle about propaganda, and this movie is no exception. It’s an Us Vs. Them proposition, the Soviets are all passionless robots and functionaries living under a cruel and despotic regime, and the Americans, well, they have heart, man, they’re real!

About five years after this movie was made the Soviet Union collapsed beneath it’s own rotting weight. This meant that The Cold War was over, and once again all that was good and free and just and true had won. However Operation Desert Storm, in which the US invaded Iraq, immediately commenced, and ever since, the Middle East (in one form or another) has been the enemy of the West.

After seeing Rocky IV, it struck me that America was always at war, it was as if they HAD to be at war, as if it was a necessary and functioning part of the system. “The Military Industrial Complex,” as it is conspiratorially called, is a huge business in the US, accounting for hundreds of billions dollars. It is a primary economic driver, one from which so much else flows, and it surely looks like it now exists as an essential part of the economy than some subordinate wing of government used to defend abstract principles like justice.

Recently, on December the 2nd there was another mass shooting in the United States, this time in San Bernardino. It was the 355th of the year.

As the news broke, politicians assigned some assistant take to their Twitter accounts and Tweet out their feelings. The event, immediately politicized, had one flavour of politician crying out for gun control, while the other flavour of politician offered “thoughts and prayers.” It turns out that the “thoughts and prayer” crowd had all accepted donations from the NRA.

https://twitter.com/igorvolsky

Granted, this is no scientific study, but it seems to confirm something that we already knew.

On the face of it, the NRA and the on-going weapon crisis is utterly mysterious. Why only in America? Why haven’t they done anything to try to solve this problem? I mean, from 2004 to 2013, there were 316,000 firearm deaths in the US set against 313 deaths from terrorism, but the resources are where?

In the US, politicians and thus policy, are bought.

That’s the way the system works.

War, be it with the Communists or the Terrorists, is very profitable, as is the production and sale of guns. It’s the sort of thing that should actually be put in the Constitution, just so everybody is clear about profit, rather than freedom, being the guiding light of the nation.

Until the anti-gun lobby starts to give representatives money commiserate with what the NRA does, then we are going to have to expect these trends, and all these deaths, to continue.