Posts

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

‘Stupid’ isn’t the first word that comes to mind when you’ve been launched like a rocket out the driver’s-side door of the Volkswagen beetle you were driving down the 401. Nor does it come to mind as you watch the car tumble down the embankment beneath you, shards of glass and assorted artifacts flying out the open doors and smashed windows. Or when you notice the tires spinning frantically as if they might gain some sort of traction mid-air through its demolition rollover.

It doesn’t occur to you at the apogee of your wingless flight as you arc into your death-defining decsent, wondering which boulder is going to smash your head, or crooked tree limb run you through.

The word that first comes to mind is, “Yaaaaah!”

But you don’t even get a chance to scream out loud. You want to, but time has downshifted into slow-mo, and you can’t get your vocal cords to synchronize with the stretched wavelength of your fatal trajectory. Your death cry is stifled. You’re a giant bean bag that’s been tossed off the back of a truck.

Later, once you’re sure you have survived, you will review millisecond by millisecond the instant replay of your flight. Then you will have time to insert thoughts into your version of events, pause and shuffle the sequence into frames that might be numbered like a book’s: Stupid-Page 1, Stupid-Page 2, and so on.

It’s hard to pinpoint the beginning, middle and end of such an episode. Stupid-Page 1 could have been pegged to the day me and my girlfriend stuck out our thumbs and headed west, on the first leg of our hitch-hiking odyssey from Montreal to the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Or when we piled out of the car after our first ride and stuffed half our worldly belongings into a culvert to ‘lighten the load.’ Or when we decided the load would be even lighter if we went our separate ways because each of us came to think the other stupid in some way-shape-or-form.

Let’s fast-forward to a coordinate somewhere between Toronto and Cornwall Ontario on the last leg of my solo return trip. It’s five or six o’clock in the morning and I’m already on the shoulder of the 401, hitching. A guy in a faded blue VW Bug pulls over and offers me a ride. But before I can get in the opened passenger side door, he says, “Hey, I’ve been driving all night. Can you take over for a while?”

That’s Page-1 in his stupid portfolio; my acceptance of his request Page-101 in mine. I mean, would you ask a complete stranger, who looked like he’d just climbed out of a ditch—because in fact, he had—to drive your car while you took a nap? But pots can’t call kettles black; would you take him up on the offer if you didn’t even have a learner’s permit and the only time you’d actually driven a car you were sitting in your father’s lap?

Don’t answer.

“Never driven a standard?” my sleep-deprived companion asked when I tried to grind the shifter into first. “Push down the clutch… That’s the pedal on the left… now slip the shifter into first.” Being a quick learner doesn’t disqualify you from the ranks of stupid. I got the hang of the ‘H’ sequence after a couple of times through, and my instructor settled in for his snooze.

Stupid isn’t a word that has any significance in a squirrel’s lexicon. Some homo sapiens think of them as stupid, but those boastful members of my own species are stupid themselves if they believe their IQ goes up in reverse proportion to the amount they downgrade the intelligence of another. Just try living off the land even for a week, eating nothing but acorns and berries, with no roof over your head, and predators crouched behind every bush and you’ll be able to make a more informed comment about who’s stupid and who isn’t.

However, squirrels do have a blind spot when it comes to cars. So it was I found myself barreling down the fast lane, bearing down on a black squirrel that was hippity-hopping across the highway toward the ditch on the other side. I eased into the slow lane—where I should have been in the first place—and hoped he’d remain frozen until I zoomed by. No such luck. He hopped right in front of me at the last second…

Being the smarty-pants you are, I’m sure you can guess what happened next. I eased further to the right, then farther again when the squirrel continued its suicidal progress. And again, until the passenger-side tires hit gravel. The VW lurched right, I overcorrected left, next thing I knew we were skidding sideways down the highway, a spray of gravel rattling under the floorboards and the front tires screeching over the asphalt.

My companion woke up with a start and looked out the front window, confused that the scenery was sliding by side to side instead of scrolling toward some vanishing point up the highway. I’ve lost count of the number of stupids that could be counted in that lick of time. All I can say is, none of them were the squirrel’s fault. It was just being a squirrel.

“What the…” my co-pilot managed.

Before he could complete the expletive, the back fender of the VW hit a post someone had carelessly planted in a spot they might have expected an errant, out-of-control Volkswagen to be sliding by. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! That was enough to tip us, sending the V-Dub into the clattering, shattering roll that would eject me out of my seat… no seatbelt, stupid… into my graceful arc.

I could describe my flight as a form of kinetic ballet; it did have a certain elegance to it if you could ignore the likely denouement. In retrospect, my slow-motion high dive seemed to be taking place in air that had thickened to the consistency of water—it felt as if I was swimming through the sky…

That ethereal sensation ended with a thud.

Next thing I knew I woke up in an ambulance, being prepped for a trip to the hospital.

Neither me nor my companion were seriously injured in the crash. And I do believe the squirrel survived unscathed. Our gurneys were parked side by side in the hospital emergency ward. His last words were: “Don’t tell them who was driving.” I deduced from the instruction that he had been tossed from his tumbling vehicle too, and preferred to accept full responsibility for my share of the overall stupidity.

I can’t say I learned my lesson that day… but that’s another story… well several of them, actually.

The Toast

Author, Craig Spence
Reader, Craig Spence
Production by Books Unbound

In this excerpt from Entrapment Lucinda MacDonald, her sisters Loretta and Louise, and their new friend Brenda Tanner celebrate their partnership as the guardian angels of Larry, the MacDonalds’ damaged brother, who Brenda has commissioned to do a mural on the outside back wall of her Inner Worlds gallery. It’s a transitional moment for Lucinda, and she breaks down…

Larry accepted Brenda’s offer.

“He bobbed his head and mumbled something like, ‘Sounds good,’ as if he was speaking from under a blanket with a mouthful of peanut butter,” she laughed. “I said to hell with it, grabbed him by the shoulders and hugged him hard, like a mother gorilla. He went stiff as a poker of course, but at least he didn’t struggle.”

“What part of him went stiff?” Louise joked.

We four hooted, raising our glasses in a toast to success. The ringing of our crystalline cluster-clink—barely audible over the rumble of passing traffic out on Wharf Street and the clatter of dishes in the sidewalk café—marked a beginning and an ending. Larry, dysfunctional genius that he was, had brought us MacDonald women back together as family.

Til death do you part, Echo intruded.

Shut the fuck up!

And, because of him, I had met Brenda, another love of my life…

I’ll shut the fuck up for now, Echo grumped.

And forever hold your peace! I snarked.

But it is getting kind of crowded in that heart locket of yours, don’t you think?

I said shut the fuck up!

When a glass breaks it makes a tickling sound. Hearts break silently within.

If you were real, I’d throttle you.

I am real…

“Lucinda?”

Brenda frowned, puzzled; my sisters looked on, concerned.

“You okay?”

“Oh!” I flustered. “I’m just a little overwhelmed.”

I wanted to take her hand, to kiss her a second time—or at least be kissed by her. I hated myself for feeling so desperately passionate, weakened by our celebratory moment. So pathetic!

“It’s going to be okay,” Brenda massaged my shoulder and the back of my neck.

“Let go,” Louise consoled.

“What?” I didn’t understand. What was I supposed to let go of?

“All these years, Luce, you’ve been the one who’s held us together. You’ve been our centre of gravity. Let go. We’re all grown up now. We’re fine. Even Larry, in his weird way, is becoming who he’s meant to be…” She paused; I waited. “You don’t have to be at the centre anymore, Luce; we’re all of us in mutual orbit, okay?”

I bowed my head, trembling, grateful, not wanting them to see me cry.

Loretta rounded the table, pressed her lips close to my ear, and whispered from behind, “Watch me spin, Sis.”

She flew away from us like a startled bird, weaving her way through and around the café tables, twirling out into Bastion Square. She couldn’t pirouette on pointe because she was wearing her sequinned thrift-store sandals. It didn’t matter. She floated effortlessly up and down the steps, buoyed by a musical spirit I couldn’t quite hear, but which I felt in every vibrant bone and nerve of my body. Some people stopped to watch her ballet; others hurried on, pretending not to notice.

“Oh my god!” Brenda gasped.

Gorgeous! Echo sighed.

“That’s because of you, Sis!” Loretta embraced me from behind when she’d flitted back to our table. “It’s all down to you!”

First Kiss

In this excerpt from Lucinda’s journal she and her sisters approach Inner Worlds Gallery owner Brenda Tanner to see if they can secure a safer lifestyle for their brother Larry. He’s been living on the street, earning money doing sketches and gaining a reputation as a graffiti artist. He’s pitched his tent in the gallery’s parking lot and started a mural on its back wall—getting enthusiastic approval from Brenda after the fact. The sisters want to talk to Brenda about Larry’s well-being, but Lucinda has someting else on her mind, too…

If Larry couldn’t be lured off the street, we’d make his homeless existence as safe and comfortable as possible. We approached Brenda with our plan because we wanted to do whatever we could to secure his place in her parking lot. “Of course he can stay there!” she countered. “Homelessness isn’t the same thing as placelessness. Larry MacDonald has a place right here!” She patted her left breast. “As long he wants to make my parking stall his home, he’s welcome.
“In fact, I’ve already talked to the tenants and owner of the building on the other side of my lot. I want to commission Larry to do a second mural on their wall. If they agree to it, and he accepts, he’ll be camped out in his patch of gravel for at least a year. Probably more.”
God! I wished in that moment I could stop loving Brenda so much. But I couldn’t help thinking and feeling like a romantic poet whenever I found myself within the ambit of her radiant being, a glow that suffused my waking and sleeping dreams. Shamelessly, I took advantage of her enthusiastic announcement to hug her; and she took advantage of my taking advantage by kissing me on the neck stepping back from that sudden embrace. I didn’t dare exchange a glance with my sisters, who had witnessed that subtle collapse of my known universe. I knew they knew; didn’t want them to know that I knew they knew, which would have entailed confused and embarrassing elaboration.
Some kisses are ephemeral—token gestures of affection that evaporate the instant they are bestowed; others stay with you, an intoxicant infusing your blood. I’ve never gotten over Brenda’s first kiss.

Candidates ask for your vote

Candidates participating in the April 15 all-candidates meeting addressed a long list of issues raised by the voters. Conservative Party of Canada candidate Jeff Kibble did not attend the meeting.

Cowichan-Malahat-Langford candidates speak to the issues

In his closing remarks, Liberal Party of Canada candidate Blair Herbert said to the audience at the Chemainus Residents Association’s all-candidates meeting that Conservative candidate Jeff Kibble, who did not attend, may have been told by Party Leader Pierre Poilievre to steer clear of community meetings.

“I want to address the elephant in the room,” Herbert said. “Or rather, the elephant that’s not in the room—the empty seat right here next to me, this comes down from the top.

“Poilievre has told his people, ‘Do not attend all-candidates meetings, and do not talk to the press.’ And I think that sends a message to me, and it sends a message to everybody in this room, and everybody in this riding, that the Conservative candidate is not interested in what you have to say now, and he’s not going to be interested in what you have to say if you send him to Ottawa.”

Herbert said national polls suggest that the April 28 federal election will be a contest between two parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives. He quoted former NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair as saying, ‘Trump’s threat to Canada means that the choice for Canada must be between the Liberals and the Conservatives.’

New Democratic Party candidate Alistair MacGregor asked the audience to think about his experience and achievements as their MP when they cast their votes. “What I offer to you folks is my service, my track record as your member of parliament,” he said, pointing to his nine-and-a-half years as their MP.

MacGregor said he’s had tremendous success as an opposition MP: bringing grocery chain executive Galen Weston before the Agriculture Committee to “face questioning on high food prices”; advocating in Parliament for a study that led to the strengthening of Canada’s Competition Bureau, which “…led the House of Commons to finally confront the corporate greed that is driving so much of the cost of living.”

He concluded that a strong contingent of NDP MPs is essential because the Liberal and Conservative parties are tied too closely to Corporate Canada. “You cannot trust them to look after your interests, which is why it is so important to have a strong contingent of New Democrats there, to keep those parties honest, but also to ensure that the issues that matter to you are given voice, whether it’s health care, the environment, or workers’ rights.”

Facing ongoing upheavals from the Trump administration in Washington, MacGregor said an experienced representative is needed in Ottawa. “With the uncertainty we are facing, Parliament is going to be recalled pretty quickly, you need someone in there who knows what to do from day one.”

Green Party of Canada candidate Kathleen Code said the three ‘status-quo’ parties have to be held accountable for the situation Canada finds itself in a quarter of the way through the 21st Century, and that it’s time for change.

“Here we are in 2025, look at the situation that we’re in and consider that it’s the three status-quo parties that have brought us to this point, where we can no longer afford our own lives,” she said. “I think that’s a really sad statement for us, to be where we are in a country as rich as Canada.”

She said, “We are the party of the people; we are not the party of the corporations, we don’t have any baggage, we don’t owe anything to anybody, we speak purely from the heart out of compassion and kindness and believe that we need to raise everybody up.”

It’s important to have a Green Party perspective at the table, she said.

She pointed to her experience and success as the Chair of the Eco Forestry Institute Society. “I’m part of the strategic team that took three years, raised a million dollars, and kept most of the Eco Forest in the public domain.” Code also cited her involvement in the Fairy Creek movement, an experience that gave her a deeper understanding of “how indigenous sovereignty, title, and rights work.”

“I know how government works, I know communications, I used to write a lot of briefing notes, and I’m simply a policy wonk, and I believe we really need this voice.”

The Chemainus Residents Association identified and asked the community to prioritize questions that would be put to candidates at the April 15 all-candidates meeting…

Blood Red

In this episode of Entrapment Lucinda and her son Manny visit her brother, who is creating a mural in a back alley in downtown Victoria, BC. Larry is living rough and homeless, and Lucinda hasn’t seen him for more than five years. Manny has never met his uncle. They are reconnected by Brenda Tanner, owner of the Inner Worlds Gallery and the back wall where Larry’s imagined world view is emerging stroke by stroke. Ten years on, Manny will compose a poem entitled Blood Red memorializing this encounter….

“Oh my god, aren’t you handsome?”

I liked Brenda Tanner the moment I met her. Liked her so much it felt sort of awkward because I didn’t have a right to feel so intimate so fast. She had stooped on her haunches to introduce herself to Manny, who was obviously thrilled to have a grownup—a beautiful, charming, cultured grownup—treat him like royalty. He giggled and beamed.

“Hi,” I said, interrupting their moment. “I’m Lucinda… Lucinda MacDonald.”

She took a moment to squeeze Manny’s shoulder, then stood up, turning toward me. Her delightfully startled, wide-open greeting took my breath away.

“Larry’s sister?” she asked.

I nodded, entranced by the musical timbre of her voice. Everything about her made me shiver with envy and joy. How can anyone be so beautiful, I wondered.

“I’m so glad you’ve come,” she touched my arm consolingly.

“He’ll be pleased to see you, and…?” She glanced down at Manny.

“That’s his nephew, Manny,” I said. “They’ve never met.”

“Well, let’s set that straight. I was just closing up, so let me get my keys.”

“There’s a gate…”

“I know. I lock the parking lot up at night.” She explained that Larry got in and out via a back lane, wriggling through a narrow opening between a chainlink fence and his wall. “If he wasn’t so skinny, he could never do it.”

The remark nudged gently. How did Larry get so skinny? And how did he get so lost?

“Has he told you anything about his past? His family life?”

Brenda chuckled, “Larry’s not much of a talker. He speaks with his brush for the most part.”

“It’s a long story, a horror story. I’m not surprised he hasn’t put it into words.”

Rattling the gate open, Brenda ushered us into the parking lot. “He might be in his tent,” Brenda guessed, nodding toward a blue fabric dome at the far end of the lot. For a moment I felt like a mendicant approaching some sort of sanctifying shrine to do homage. I shrugged the thought off. “Larry?” Brenda coaxed as we approached. “You’ve got visitors.”

No response. The tent remained perfectly still, the hunched form of a frightened animal waiting to be attacked. “Larry,” she repeated softly, then gestured for me to say something, inclining her head toward the tent.

“Larry, it’s Lucinda. Please. I’d love to see you. We’ve missed you.”

For a moment, silence; then the rustling of fabric; then a relapse into silence.

“I’ve brought your nephew Manny with me. He’d like to meet you.”

More rustling; then a hand unzipped the tent’s flap; and Larry’s head popped out like a prairie dog’s. Squinting, he looked at Brenda, then me, then Manny, and smiled—a crooked, broken smile, but at least we had something to fix, something to work on.

I collapsed onto my knees and took his head in my hands. “I love you,” I whispered, trying my best not to cry. “Please let me love you!”

Manny edged up close to us. I couldn’t see him but felt his tiny presence, then his hand on my neck, and his other hand on Larry’s neck, and his cheek against my scalp. “And Manny loves you, too,” I smiled—the most pathetic, feeble smile I could summon, hoping that they could feel my joy as we huddled in our clumsy embrace, shipwrecked under a sea of sky.

Larry took us on a tour of his mural.

“He’s speaking!” Brenda whispered.

The words tumbled out of him awkwardly, as if he was an immigrant with a poor command of English. And his stuttering made him stall and start like a misfiring engine, but he was excited to be showing Manny his wall and pushed through his shyness and disability. “Th… th… thaaat’s Wharf Street,” he pointed to the centre of the scene. Victoria’s skyline, looking north, formed a jagged edge running the entire length of the parking lot.

The thought occurred to me that Manny could have walked up that imaginary road into the painting’s vanishing point about a third of the way up the wall.

“What’s there?” Manny pointed up at the white brickwork of the Inner Worlds gallery.

“Tha… tha… thaaat’s going to be the sky.”

“Wouldn’t all those bricks fall down and kill all those people in the street?” Manny giggled.

Larry laughed. Not the condescending laughter of an adult who knew better, but the conspiratorial hooting of a friend. “Well,” he said. “We just have to save the day, aaa.. aaa… and paint those bricks away. Poof! Gone!” He gestured grandly with a sweep of his arm. “We’ll make them into a black fabric sky, then poke some holes through it so people can see the starlight, then set it on fi… fi… fire at the end of Wharf Street with a blazing red ball of a sun.”

Manny scrunched his face into a mischievous frown. “But the sun’s over there,” he challenged, pointing west, over the rim of our brick-and-mortar-canyon toward the glare of the late afternoon sun. ‘And you can’t see stars in daytime.”

“Why,” Larry huffed. “I can put the sun anywhere I want. It can shine out anyone’s ar… ar… armpit…”

We all laughed at his teasing schtick.

“Aaa… aaa… as for the stars, only people with imaginations can see ‘em shining in broad daylight. People like you!” He pointed like a revivalist preacher issuing a godly commandment at my son, smirking at his own drama.

Never had I seen Manny look so pleased with himself. So proud!

“Tell you what,” Larry said. “When the time comes, I’ll get you to put a few stars in that black-velvet sky. Whaa… whaa… Whaddya think of that?”

“Yes!” Manny pumped his fist.

Brenda beamed, radiant as a gentle sun in our shadowed courtyard. I couldn’t help loving her, wanting her, but suppressed that secret desire, crushed it because I was afraid my love would destroy her, and me with her. I wasn’t even sure we could become friends but was prepared to put up with my yearning just so I could be close to her.

I’m haunted by that wondrous reunion with my brother. If things hadn’t ended the way they did, I might have let it settle in my subconscious, like a photo pressed between the pages of a family album. But things did come to an awful end, and that memory has become an inflaming spirit, burning through me like the blood-red sun that spills its molten light down Wharf Street in Larry’s mural. Ten years on, Manny memorialized that painting in a poem.

Blood Red

I’m walking down the avenue
In the middle of my day,
Thinking nothing’s old; nothing’s new
Which means I’ve lost my way.
Don’t know where I’m going
Don’t know what’s worth knowing
There’s no such thing as growing,
Everything stays the same.

People come; people go
We laugh, we drink, we clap, we cheer
Stand loud ovations to end our shows,
Though nothing’s changed, and nothing’s clear
We can’t know where we’re going
And there’s not a thing worth knowing
And there’s no such thing as growing
In this for-ever-saken here.

I imagined once a blood-red ball,
A blistering nova casting rays
Erupting atop a star-lit wall
Exploding my day-today.
I’d forgotten where I’m going,
Had lost what once was knowing,
Was shrunken, inward-growing,
In a world become deranged.

Cyclotron

Cyclotron

Pedal to the metal
gonna go for a ride.
Pedal to the metal,
gonna glide, glide, glide.

Pedal to the metal
don’t know where I’ve been.
Pedal to the metal,
I’m a spinning machine.

Pedal to the metal,
gonna leave the past behind.
Pedal to the metal
gonna find what I can find.

Pedal to the metal,
just watch me go.
Pedal to the metal…
Where? I just don’t know.

Pedal to the metal,
wave the world goodbye.
Pedal to the metal,
tilt into the sky.

Ya, it’s a good good feeling,
taking to the road,
a good, good feeling
shucking that load
when I pedal to the metal,
and glide, glide, glide.

Naked Truth

Naked Truth

I do love walking barefoot

inside my shoes and socks,

to feel the ground beneath my soles

and sense what I am not.

To walk the earth quite naked,

cloaked in shirt and tie,

warmed by the sun upon my back

beneath my slice of sky.

I never feel embarrassed

to show just who I am

to all my fellow creatures

alive upon this land.

They’re my boon companions,

although they’re poorly dressed.

They scrabble, claw, and bite, and chew,

and do their very best

to survive upon this planet,

this spinning ball of dust,

that is our one and only home,

in the universe of us.

Craig Spence

My Better Half

My Better Half

How can you be a symbol
of my love
inanimate, cold, and barren
as you are?

How can a far flung
chunk of star
spinning slowly,
majestically
in my night’s sky
reflect the truth of who we are
of me and mine?

I look up
through an imagined pane…
And there you are
a distraction
an abstraction
searching for its name,
sailing through my spangled dark,
brighter than any spark
of heaven’s sequins.

And yet?
A mystery to me.

Surely there’s a science
to this madness,
to your slow motion pirouette
that matches mine.
You draw me to you
and I you to me,
clasped in an eternal whirl,
a planetary skirl that?
Changes the levels
of my restless seas
and the courses of my inner tides.

And yet?
This is nonsense!

I awaken, and you are gone
the fading notes
of a forgotten song.
I roll over in my fallen form
and there’s the truth,
beside me all along,
my better half.

You give my love its meaning.

‘Thanks’ from a proud Canadian

This Hour has 22 Minutes host Mark Critch and Justin Trudeau reflect on 2024

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau,

Thank you for your dignified, unflinching response to the assault on our status as an indpendent nation by the president of the United States. Your measured but unwavering pushback to Donald Trump’s crass bullying has exemplified the true nature of Canadianism—modest pride. You have shown by your example the difference between ‘strength’ and ‘power.’

A strong leader doesn’t bluster and blunder. He doesn’t resort to threatening insinuations and unwarranted punishments. He acts on principle and treats others who hold different views respectfully as he works toward resolution. He doesn’t back down when confronted by taunts and threats. A strong leader respects the rights and boundaries of others because he knows when mutual respect collapses irreparable damage ensues.

A ‘leader’ who relies on power to get his way is the antithesis of ‘strong.’ The word that sums up that brand of ‘leadership’ best is ‘fascism.’ The hallmarks of fascism are: a cult mentality demanding hero worship; the selective targeting of enemies, who become the focus of militant, xenophobic reaction; denigration and vilification of political opponents—who can never be seen as colleagues; the usurpation and abuse of power that is rightly vested in the state and its offices; the unprincipled use of that power.

You, Prime Minister Trudeau, have demonstrated strength in the face of unmitigated power. You have done so on behalf of Canadians and the international community of nations. You have truly represented the majority of Canadians, and we are proud of your resolve.

I say this as a citizen whose vote has not gone to the Liberal Party of Canada but has admired your restraint and focus during a turbulent epoch. Donald Trump isn’t the first politician or activist to use the divisive tactics of the extreme right to undermine your stature as the elected leader of Canada. The vituperative practitioners of right-wing character assassination have sown the seeds of hatred and virulent abuse from within, and you have been a target of their rage.

You continued to lead the nation with dignity and focus.

Under your leadership, the negative intent of Donald Trump’s assaults has resulted in a positive outcome. They have galvanized Canadians to ‘stand on guard’ for their nation and its true values. We have reclaimed our flag and will fly it with resilience and modest pride.

Sincerely,
Craig Spence

United States of America Inc.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk aren’t stupid in the normal sense of the word. They share what might be called ‘lizard smarts.’ They have perfected the ‘art of the deal’, know how to zero in with lazer-focus exclusively on self-interest, and have egos that can’t adapt to any sense of common good or even decency. Which is to say, they’re smart enough to be stupid on a monumental scale. They conflate the meanings of ‘strength’ and ‘power,’ and, as a result, are taking the world down a disastrous road with their grand project: the United States of America Inc.

What’s the difference between a government and a corporation? Two phrases sum up that distinction quite nicely: governments, to quote Abraham Lincoln, are ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’; the corporate mentality is ‘survival of the fittest’ in a dog-eat-dog world where corporate loyalty is to shareholders, not citizens. 

Trump, Musk, and Company are not just blurring those lines; they’re going as far as they can as fast as they can to erase them entirely, imposing corporate ethics and strategies on institutions intended to serve a totally different purpose.

One of the first tenets sworn to by members of the business elite is to shun all ‘externalities’—that is, don’t factor environmental, social, or political costs into anything you have to do to sustain and grow profitability. Global warming is a negative byproduct of our operations? Not my problem. People are forced to work in unsafe, unhealthy environments to keep costs down? Let ’em find a job somewhere else. Our operations can only continue with the support of a brutal, fascist regime? Just make sure that doesn’t make it into our annual report to shareholders, especially if that fascist regime is taking root in the Oval Office.

So what will the United States of America Inc. look like once it’s fully fledged? Well, let’s just say no self-respecting eagle would deign to be the avian embodiment of a nation governed by such crass, shortsighted ideals.

Let’s look at a couple of emergent examples. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was asked to leave the White House recently after a public row with Trump. One of Trump’s comments was “you’ve got no cards to play,” when Zelinskyy refused to knuckle under to the CEO of USA Inc.’s demands that he sign an agreement granting USA Inc. access to Ukraine’s rare metals without having negotiated any adequate provisions for future security for Ukraine from attacks by USA Inc.’s friend and partner, Russia.

Trump sees the weaponry and money provided to Ukraine in the war with Russia as a drain on USA Inc.’s balance sheet that requires payback; Zelenskyy, who has seen more than 400,000 Ukrainians soldiers and 12,500 civilians killed or wouded since Russia invaded in 2022, sees Ukraine as the bulwark against Russia’s military ambitions in Europe. That this Oval Office disagreement was vented in public, with the TV cameras rolling, is yet another instance of Trump’s gameshow politics, which got very high ratings in Putin’s Russia.

‘You’re Fired!’ has become the clarion call of the Trump-Musk administration and United States of America Inc. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was fired at a staged event, while the cameras rolled and the world watched with shock and disgusted awe. Canada’s ‘governor’ Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was fired with what some took to be a dismissive troll, but are now realizing is a gangster’s tactic to persuade citizens of the 51st State to knuckle under and make the threat of unjustified trade tariffs ‘go away.’ A ‘Fork in the Road’ buyout was thrust into the inboxes of 2.3 million American federal employees Jan. 28 giving them until Feb. 6 to accept or else…

There’s a common thread to all these examples—and plenty more in the works. Federal employees, allies, anyone who doesn’t fit into the corporate gameplan of United States of America Inc. is treated like an enemy and tossed into the street like human garbage.

What does this business model mean for the future of United States of America Inc.’s citizens, and citizens of the world?

People will be excluded from the government’s calculations and society’s benefits unless they contribute to ‘profitability.’

Other nations are not the concern of USA Inc. unless they contribute to profitability.

Global stability and sustainability are of no concern to USA Inc. because they represent a net loss and don’t contribute to short-term profitability.

Morality, decency, and compassion in any form become unsupported and insupportable burdens because they do not contribute to USA Inc.’s profitability.

Question: Who will benefit most from all the newfound profits that are going to be wrung out of the domestic market and the world by United States of America Inc.?

Clue: It’s not likely to be the ordinary guys MAGA man pretends are his buddies.

Follow-up question: What’s are the biggest cards Trump thinks gives him an unbeatable hand—the ace-king combo he just knows will make him winner in this corporate takeover?

Answer: That we’re stupider than he is.