2081 begins

George Orwell (Eric Blair) is in the room with me now almost all the time, my imaginary ghost, the same spirit that tormented Blair to the point he cut himself off from the world to sit in a cabin in Scotland getting bone thin writing "1984" in 1948. I'm about as isolated as a broke aging out-of-work journalist like Blair could be in 2018... maybe I should write 2081... or just read more. I have a way to move out of Tahoe right now and I'm letting it slide, bk no matter how isolated I feel, when I walk outside here, I feel better. There's something in the way the sun dances on the trees here, and Every Day it looks different. Every day, the light, the clouds, the humidity are all different, so it's a new beautiful thing to look at every day. Also every day when I go out, I interact with another human being, even if it's only a few phrases. The people who live here are Reticent with newcomers and I see why. As it's a resort town, some Very Strange people show up here, live a while, then leave. In fact, just riding the bus and observing this phenom, the characters who breeze through Tahoe, is a lifetime of experience in itself. So as much as I've hated living here, now that I see ways to leave, I also see I really don't want to. I came here bk it's better than just about every place else. I'd have more people in my life in Reno or many other places, but is that really what I want right now?* Especially considering ... this is where I am. As bad as it is, in terms of a home I can afford and a population of broken humans, just about every city in USA is worse. This is as good a place as any to ride out these crackling times...
*When so many loud Americans are misinformed as they are now, I really don't want to engage with them.
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Actually I don't need to invert the numbers 2018 to 2081 following Orwell’s lead, as the corruption and deconstruction of USA and everything it stands for is going on right now. I don't need to write the story as fiction, today "1984" is fact. 

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2081 cont'd
Remember how the right wing machine used the word “arrogant” to describe Barack Obama? Now in 2018, arrogance is almost a communications tool, used by Rudy Guiliani and Don Trump Junior especially, as they cite entitlements only the rich can assume to explain their corrupt behavior. They both explain it all as “business” or it's “how the wealthy do things." 
When you looked at Obama’s performance, you never saw anything arrogant there. Still that word “arrogant” was ubiquitous on the Right to describe Obama as President, especially where I was living in 2012-2013, rural California, Mojave Desert, near Edwards AFB, totally controlled by the right wing misinformation machine.
They put that word “arrogant” out there everywhere about Obama at least six years ago, I think, to prepare us for the arrogance we're living with now. That's my observation. This misinformation campaign started at least as far back as 2013.
I think the Right did that same "preparation through misinformation" with other words and practices. For example, the way Trump repeated “pay for play” over and over again during the 2016 election describing Hillary's nonprofit, and now we see he's the king of pay for play, going through his "personal lawyer."
The individuals who ran this coup know that by numbing a population in advance, forcing them to hear words about a crime over and over again, when you actually commit the crime, you can do it in plain sight** where everyone can see, and no one will take action to stop you. In USA after years of hearing the word "arrogant" used on Obama, we're out of energy to talk about arrogance by now. Same with "pay for play." We burned out all our public outrage on the false accusation, so now the real arrogance and pay for play can take place with nothing in its way to stop it.
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**Wow, just like Donald Trump said during election, he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in plain sight, and no one would stop him.
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Most astounding through this Trump counter-presidency is the inaction by anyone with authority to stop the coup to stop it. The misinformation machine managed to get a whole part of the population brainwashed, with twenty years of Fox News based messages dominating the media landscape, especially in rural noncoastal areas. Over those years, brainwashed Americans voted into office a Congress full of brainwashed representatives who now think that by going along with the coup, they are saving the nation, doing something patriotic. 
They are destroying the nation while deluded into thinking they're saving it. 
And those of us who live in those rural areas, but see what is really happening, feel a need to hide in silence or we'll get ostracized and attacked in our communities.
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Trump nominates a woman who was a big part of the torture scandal in 2005 to head the CIA, and yesterday she refuses to answer questions in public hearings as to whether she’ll continue the practice of torture. 
As a result, all those torture stories are now back in the light of mainstream news in America. 
The hearing to confirm her to head the CIA reminded the world why the coup took place in the first place. Through Trump’s presidency every corrupt dishonest practice of America in the last fifty years will be on public display, through one embarrassing news story after another.
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Trump’s presidency puts American hypocrisy about sex on display as well. At the same time as we export movies with explicit near-porn scenes that were not legal in back alley movie houses fifty years ago, we have a nationwide movement to stop any reference to sexuality in the workplace, all while American actresses show up for personal appearances wearing outfits where one sneeze will cause a “costume malfunction,” all while the President engages in freaky sex with porn stars for money and no one even mentions impeachment. 
The only message we deliver to the world about American sexual politics is hypocrisy. 
And it's as if someone else is pulling the strings, releasing the stories and making sure they get primary play on every news outlet. 
Where are the news editors? 
Probably unemployed and blogging.
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Story continues here: 
http://cityofangels25.blogspot.com/2018/05/2018-to-2081-contd_11.html 
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By Kay Ebeling

Producer, City of Angels Blog 

Not Just L.A., the city of angels is everywhere