Cat Show 1/29/2021
VG: While madness caused by Donald Trump is surely abiding, does Biden hold a trump card? Or maybe Navalny?
ALICE: I suspect you hide your usually mockery behind your awkward rhyming, but the whole world is breathing easier. And not just us, enlightened Democrats who know that Biden spells the end of racism, homophobia, sexism and all other nasty prejudices of the XIX century that Trump tried to resurrect. China is happy, Iran is happy, Europeans are peeing in their pants from joy. This nightmare is over, and the world can go back to peaceful sleep again.
HOBBS: You said it. Trump was the actual picture of Dorian Gray. And neither Europeans nor Americans wanted to see their true representation. Now with the picture stacked safely back into the closet, the life will go on. Neoliberalism with a human face! Neocolonialism with a human face! Imperialism with a human face! You see, to bomb a country and then prevent refugees from coming is so Trump-like. Civilized world wants to destroy a country and then let the refugees in. That’s progress.
VG: Peaceful slumbers – the dream of Alice – is a rather peculiar notion. I am not sure the world can afford it. And that's been the state of the world ever since Reagan and Thatcher took over and re-aligned their countries into a neocon/neolib project, which Clinton and Tony Blair window-dressed for internal consumption. Can’t recall any self-questioning, any serious doubts about the viability of this project. Collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic boom in China only confirmed to the fools of Fukuyama–type that the history is over, and we can all go back to sleep.
HOBBS: Economics is a stubborn thing, as Stalin used to say. Nature is a stubborn thing. Humanity is a stubborn thing. No amount of Fukuyamism or Bidenism can change it. So Biden brings in all the relics from Obama era. Why? Are they really awake? Have they ever demonstrated any awareness that the world had changed since silly Fukuyama pronouncements? Have they demonstrated any awareness that unexamined life is not worth living, as the Greeks used to say? Had anyone question what neoliberalism amounts to? What the hell is this idiotic dogma of Clinton years, that US is indispensable nation? Exceptional in all respects, including the quality of its water in Flint, MI and its leadership in Washington, DC?
ALICE: Wait a minute? We can’t afford to ask these philosophical questions. Not everyone one of us is his master’s pet, who always gets free salmon just for parroting his master’s opinions. Many decent Americans have to work. They are doing the best they can while being justifiable proud of American accomplishments. Wasn’t it the US scientists who came up with the most of the world vaccines? Wasn’t it US computer geeks who came up with most of the world gadgets and social media platforms? Wasn’t it the same internet moguls who finally put an end to Trump’s dominance of the Twitterdom? Wasn’t is US brave soldiers who liberated Auschwitz from the Nazis? At least, that’s what the most progressive American politician, Bernie Sanders twitted yesterday, and I’d rather believe this socialist from Vermont, that some lying Russian president with the biggest palace in the world.
HOBBS: Nice try, Alice, to subvert the discussion. Now you want to talk about Navalny and Putin and Russian protests, but ignore the neoliberal restoration that takes place right here, in Washington. With the Bourbons, sorry, Obama-bots, coming back to their cushy jobs, without learning anything and without forgetting anything.
VG: Interesting take, Hobbs. But what exactly were they expected to learn? That the world is too complex and contradictory to be run by a bunch of ambitious over-achievers? That no matter how hard they try to control things – there is always a new eruption. In Clinton case, there were so called “bimbo-eruptions” – when the past was catching up with the good old Billy the Goat. And now we have all sorts of financial crisis eruptions, terrorism eruptions, climate eruptions, pandemic eruptions, deplorables’ eruptions. And the latest and – oh, so sweet-- StopGame eruptions.
ALICE: And yet, every time, US and its enlightened and progressive leadership finds inner resources and comes back victorious. For every pandemic, there is Fauci. For every Trump, there are Biden and Harris, for every financial crisis, there are Milken and Janet Yellen, for every foreign policy crisis, there are Blinken and Viktoria Nuland. And I am sure, the same will happen with this mob rebellion in the stock market. New financial scheme will be proposed by the Hedge Fund managers – the smartest people on earth, since they are not only immensely rich, but also extremely Democratic –and the things will resume its course. Which I can’t really say about Russia and Navalny! The regime is shaking in its boots, and is facing a monumental crisis, which they would never solve without Americans. We’ve helped them win the WWII, we helped them with corn, when Khruschev came to Iowa, we helped them to elect Yeltsin, we train their kids in our universities, and sooner or later we’ll put our puppet into Kremlin, and then the world will sigh the sigh of relief.
HOBBS: Oh, Alice. You are getting more and more doctrinaire and unhinged. Is it the effects of new vaccine? How did you get it? You sure look like a senior feline, but didn’t they look at your papers?
ALICE: Vladimir, please stop Hobbs. I am not going to tolerate this blatant agism and sexism. Every time I mention Putin, he is baring his claws and fangs. With Biden behind me, I am no longer afraid of you two.
VG: Come on, Hobbs. Alice will soon come back to her senses. She is pretty observant for an average NYT reader. She’ll see the light. Plus, depriving her of juicy morsels of salmon and duck fat will surely help. Nothing clears the cat’s mind better than the Fauci-Bill Gates formula for senior felines.
