“Heavenly shades of night are falling, it’s twilight time.”
So sang the Platters in 1958, and the lyrics were running, fresh, through my head, as I watched the Blackbelt Narcissist Finals between the ever-weakening president and his pet billionaire last week. It wasn’t so much the content, or the back and forth, or even the thunderous crack we were hearing in the unholy alliance.
No. For me, it was the echo of the Twilight of the Gods stories that are found in so many cultures. Take, for example, Gotterdammerung, the last of the four epic music dramas that make up Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle. It portrays the thunderous and destructive devolution and battle that brought about the end of the Norse gods, the end of the helpless and unfortunate human world of the time, and, as a result, as in many destruction myths, an opening for rebirth.
In Norse mythology, this destruction is called Ragnarok, or the doom of the gods. Loki, or, as we now refer to him, Elon Musk, begins the mutually assured destruction by deceiving a blind god into killing another, much beloved, god. This murder sets off an epic godly battle that eventually leads to the deaths of both Odin and his son, Thor.
It is referred to as a “twilight” because of the degeneration of the gods that precedes it, their impetuous and inexplicably childish behaviors, their wanton destructions, and their deceits. Such a breakdown leads to a realization by humans that they should be in charge, and not leave their fates up to these impetuous and irresponsible powers.
The same devolution occurs in Greek mythology, though not with a culminating battle. The classic Olympian story is cast more as a tale of waning influence by the gods on the human population, and a final end to mindless worship of these imperfect beings. Zeus has been wantonly cheating on his marriage with Hera, and his lies, the casual abuse of his powers, along with similar crimes by many of his godly pantheon, lead to a revolt led by his wife, along with Apollo, Artemis and Poseidon, and ends with Zeus in chains.
In truth, however, all the gods had been weakened. Stories that began as breathless worship grow into a massive rejection of the gods and their titanic cruelties, and lead to their eventual downfall. Mankind, destroyed by the games of the gods, has had enough.
So, as I watched the battle of sarcastic and childish words unfold between two powerful and wantonly cruel modern gods, I thought, finally we will see the twilight of these gods and the rebirth of human democracy throughout the land.
We are tired of witnessing their endless and wanton cruelties being visited on the sick of the world. We are tired of suffering senseless and crippling losses in our own services and guardrails. We are tired of seeing our own peace of mind snatched away. In response, our group of modern human victims is on the verge of forcing a twilight on these gods and their modern pantheon of thoughtlessly destructive demigods. Perhaps it is time to reclaim the word “Woke”. Time to awaken and shake off our misplaced worship. Time for Gotterdammerung.
The Real Unlawful Assembly
Welcome to LA. It’s been my home for eighty-two years, and I’ve seen some unlawful assemblies in my time. This past week, the LAPD declared the entire downtown area to be an unlawful assembly. But that’s not the one I would identify as the problem right now.
The real unlawful assembly is the illegal deployment of the California National Guard and the Marines (for god’s sake) by the man who wants to declare martial law so that he, and not local law enforcement, is free to incarcerate and punish the people of America. And, he would prefer to do it without Due Process, without those pesky Courts, and, certainly, without any basis in law.
In order to do so, as he has with every other law that precludes the unauthorized use of presidential power, he completely ignored the law of Posse Comitatus, passed in 1878, and followed by every president before him. Under the Posse Comitatus Act, local law enforcement is authorized to summon a group of citizens to help them keep the peace, or to apprehend criminals. Importantly, the Act also bars the use of any federal or federalized troops to enforce local laws, with very limited exceptions related exclusively to controlling insurrections, which require Constitutional authority or an Act of Congress.
As we now know, the president federalized the California National Guard and ordered them into LA, against the wishes of all of our state and local authorities. Then, as if that wasn’t egregious enough, he ordered up 700 Marines from the 29 Palms Marine Base and brought them in as backup. To this he added another 2000 National Guard troops. This flagrant disregard of Posse Comitatus is what caused the Governor of California to file a suit to test the legality of such a rogue act. A president may only take control of the National Guard, which is, in every case, under the authority of the Governor of each state, when there is a widespread insurrection that threatens federal ability to operate. A demonstration against that very president doesn’t even begin to meet the definition.
In addition, none of these troops were actually ever used for anything. Oh, they rumbled down our streets in military trucks, and lined up in front of the federal building downtown. We haven’t seen the Marines, yet, though we are told they are here. But overkill much?
The demonstrators were never the problem. It was the actions of ICE agents that began to roil our neighborhoods last week. Unlike the rhetoric coming out of the white house, ICE did not target individuals by name, which would have supported their claims that they were only carting off violent criminals. They stormed random Home Depots and 7 Elevens, pulled women away from their sewing machines in the Fashion district, arrested parents at the graduations of their middle school sons and daughters, and lurked outside of courtrooms to haul away people who were showing up for hearings. These people’s only “crimes” was that they couldn’t produce sufficient papers to show documentation.
In addition, many of those military gorillas in full combat gear were not actually ICE agents, but employees of the Department of Homeland Security’s Investigation Force, which has never been trained in dealing with, or detaining, people. Hence, the inability of these untrained men to remain peaceful and competent.
Then, the press led us all to think that the whole city was in chaos. Not so. First of all, greater downtown LA is actually 5.84 square miles in a city of over 500 square miles, so the impression given by the lazy and echo-journalistic press was egregiously over the top. Secondly, the area that saw graffiti, car fires or dumpster fires was at the very center of that patch of LA called “downtown”, perhaps, at the most 10 square blocks. Thirdly, there was no “riot”, no “widespread violence”, much as the fat, old, orangey guy wants you to think so and the right-wing press, followed meekly by the echo press, just goes right along. And, let me say it again, the demonstrators were never the problem.
LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, in his statement on the civil unrest, drew a distinction between demonstrators and “anarchists” who vandalized property and attacked police. “When I look at the people out there doing the violence,” he said, “That’s not the people we see here in the day, legitimately exercising their First Amendment rights. These people have a hoodie on, they have facemasks on. They do it all the time. They go from one civil unrest situation to another, using the same tactics. And they are connected.”
In total, the LAPD, unassisted by combat-ready troops, arrested less than two hundred people. So who needs 4,700 federalized soldiers in combat gear? Only a president who needs to make it look like a riot. He is the provocateur. It was the president who acted illegally, in attempting to foment headline-grabbing actions so he could make a show of force with military might, and divert national attention away from his Big Ugly Budget.
And then, to distract us from the failure of his war against immigrants, he throws himself a military parade, replete with tanks. This is performative tough-guy posing but it just might show us what’s in store for all of us.
Don’t fall for the false news about “riots” and “violence”. That is not what this is about. This is about protesting dictatorship and militarization. We have to keep showing up and doing everything we can to protest this military takeover. I feel, in my bones, that we will win. The white house resident’s response has been weak, panicked, and fearful. He has seen the demise of the dictator in South Korea who declared martial law and was deposed. He is feeling the twilight descending on him. Indeed, it is the twilight of the gods, and the beginning of our time to shine.
