What’s with this grand ballet between Vlad and Don?
The ballet is Russian, but Don has caught on.

Vlad – sometimes, “The Impaler” – is primer danseur, of course.
Terpsichore’s quiet, but she is the source.

The white swans are aghast, for this is their domain.
The black swans pretend to share in their pain.

Balletomanes stir in anticipation.
They hope to see a new sensation.

All the world’s a-quiver
They expect the starts to deliver.

Putin enters with a grand jetté.
The applause comes through with a grand, “Olé!”

Donald follows in his tight tutu.
He finds pirouetting, thusly, difficult to do.

The corps de ballet then fills the stage.
Vladimir, overshadowed, begins to rage.

It is his show, for sure;
It is he whom they all adore.

Now comes the pas de deux,
Danced to, “Nel Blu, dipinto di Blu.”

Don discovers he’s a ballerina;
Wonders if he still has his weena.

The swans return to their lake.
Don dashes through the rain to his cake.

Putin remains to take all the applause.
From the beginning, that was his main cause.

Rain soaked Donald, upon his return,
Finds everyone gone, and nil did he earn.

The lesson here is never to kiss the ass
Of a brazen bully with balls of brass.

For Donald, there’s ne’er but to drag it home
And expose his ass on the Capitol dome!

Regardless of whether the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) did or did not bring down the Russian airliner, what is certain is that it has acquired Vladimir Putin as a mortal enemy. One wonders if they fully comprehend the significance of their act or stated complicity therein. They have just pissed off the craziest, vainest, most vengeful, KGB-trained, nuclear-powered national leader on the world stage, whose role as a serial assassin is an open secret!

Vladimir Putin is the product of one of the most deadly spy agencies of modern times – with emphasis on, "deadly". When his beloved Soviet Union fell, he licked his today-still-festering wounds and got involved in some crooked business-government affairs in Petersburg, then he discovered that his conspiratorial instincts were applicable in the new democracy. That started him on a clawing climb to the pinnacle of power. Woe be it to the mofo who attempts to tumble him therefrom! Putin has made it clear that, if you cross him (Sounds Trumpian, no?), he can be as vengeful as Lenin or Stalin. He brutally has punished former USSR satellite states who have had the audacity to confront his authority. When they send assassins after him, he shows he is capable of poisoning a whole theater just to get to them. Just ask the new Russian, "free" press what happens when they try to exercise that freedom. Nosy reporters are eliminated one by one, in elevators or wherever. It is always public, so that the message gets out. Remember that poor bastard, not too long ago, who was walking with his girlfriend in downtown Moscow? They offed him in broad daylight, in view of the Kremlin, where Vladimir might have been watching from a window. Why, Putin was so put out by this unseemly crime in his pristine neighborhood that he (O.J.-like) promised, personally, to head an investigation to track down the killer. You ISILites, do you even read the frikkin' newspapers (or digital equivalent)? There is no longer any pretense with Putin.

So, our friends of the Islamic State, were you so busy cutting off heads and burning people alive that you did not witness the military coup of the century (so far) in Ukraine? Putin took permanent possession of Crimea, a territory fronting an important seaport. He did it so deftly that the old British Empire would have applauded. It is a land that claimed so many of her soldiers and was immortalized in a poem. Do you think that pretending or actually bringing down a Russian airliner with a stinking onboard bomb is cute? Well, if your eyes weren't so covered with gore, you might have noticed how Putin's technicians, disguised as Ukrainians, surgically cut a Dutch airliner out of the sky with a precise surface-to-air missile. You guys are cave-dwelling pikers. You're gonna pay for your unsophisticated arrogance. Boy, are you gonna pay!

If you ISISies had any sense of military and political strategy, you would have understood why the Russian Bear went into Syria. You were not the enemy. By misinterpreting your role as patsies, you have now doomed your stupid asses. Putin only pretended to lob a few, odd bombs in your direction in order to mollify the stupid West. His only goal there is to save Assad's miserable ass and Russia's only seaport in the Middle East. He didn't give a shit about what you crazy mofos were up to. But, now, you've ripped it! Not only are you gonna be thrown in with those rebels who are fighting Assad, you're gonna be especially targeted. Don't confuse Russia with the prissy West. Those Russkies have no qualms about quaint niceties such as, "collateral damage." So, don't think you're gonna escape them by hiding among the villagers. He'll not only bomb you idiots, soon you'll find Cossack boots on the ground and up your ISIS asses!

In case one of you happens to run across a history book, don't be confused about the Russians who were kicked out of Afghanistan by U.S.-supplied, shoulder-to-air missiles. Putin wasn't in charge then – he is now! You had the West pretty much at a standstill, with all the confused fighting directions within Syria – and all the other sensibilities they have about war. Putin has no sensibilities. Not only will he join the West to eliminate you maggots in Syria, but look for East-West cooperation against you idiots in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, or wherever else you thought you might be able to extend your godforsaken caliphate. You wanted war, ISIL? You've got it!

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

The Russian Bear was frustrated.

A range of food choice, he hated.

As he scratched his head,

"I'll help," a mouse said.

The bear said, "Thank you," and ate it!

.

A definition of Flim Flam:
A trick or deception. A swindle or “confidence game” that involves the skillful persuasion or clever manipulation of a targeted person or group of individuals.

Prologue

There was a time not so long ago when the world recognized and applauded the United States of America as being a great nation that was built by enterprising capitalists and by the collective blood, sweat and brawn of an international legion of immigrants.

However, times have changed. In 2016 because of the global complexities of endless wars, terrorism, economic stagnation and higher-than-average unemployment rates within “blue-collar-America”, a growing number of American attitudes toward immigration have changed from “give me your poor, your tired and huddled masses” to... “Poor non-White, non-Christian immigrants stay home.”

A clarion call is heard

Beginning in the mid-19th century and ending in the fourth decade of the 20th century, the U.S. was considered by tens of millions of Europeans to be a beacon of light for every hopeful and sea weary traveler-turned-expatriate who was in search of a new home and a new beginning.

In homes, pubs and street corners stretching across Europe, people who lost all faith in their native country to feed, protect and provide them with a promising future, began pinning their hopes and dreams on a mythical nation named “America.”

In nearly every European hamlet and city the mere mention of “America” conjured images of an abundantly rich country that was full of happy, plump and gainfully employed citizens who walked on streets that were paved with silver and gold.

To the average European laborer, the idea of immigrating to America was fresh and exciting. So, when owners of steel, coal and glass companies began actively recruiting male laborers throughout Europe to come to the U.S. to erect buildings and construct electrical power grids for expanding American cities and towns, they came in droves.

The common belief among the poorest who crossed the Atlantic Ocean as “third class” passengers onboard mighty steamships that were owned by shipping tycoons, was that upon their arrival to America, they would be warmly greeted and well respected as a vital manpower asset to a growing nation with unlimited potential. However, what these European immigrants didn’t know was that America in all its grandiosity and rugged allure, was also a nation with a dark history that was drenched in the blood, sweat and tears of human bondage, sexism, bigotry and classism.

By the end of the 19th century, America was unquestionably an affluent nation whose initial wealth was built largely on (1) the backs of Black slaves who for nearly 175 years provided free labor in agriculture and manufacturing industries, and... (2) from free real estate that was acquired by the U.S. government via treachery, broken treaties and the violent, degrading and genocidal expulsion of Native Americans from their own land.

Although American history schoolbooks do not properly reflect the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) value of nearly three centuries of free slave labor and the unbridled confiscation of hundreds of millions of acres of Native American land, very few historians will argue that it was these two specific U.S. governmental practices that mightily contributed to America’s economic boom from 1619 to present date.

When reality hits the fan

The truth be told, the bright star named “America” that European immigrants fantasized about was a place that was devoid of overcrowded city ghettos that were strategically separated by ethnicity, income and religion; devoid of terrorist acts infamously known as “lynchings” that were primarily launched in the south and southwest against Blacks, and... devoid of a “Trail of Tears” that decimated the lives of hundreds of thousands of Native Americans.

Because the poor from “the other side of the Atlantic” were well familiar with the foul stench and cyclical trappings of poverty, it didn’t take very long for these newly arrived immigrants to figure out that climbing the social-economic ladder in their newly adopted country [pay attention, this is very important] also meant adopting and mimicking the values, attitudes and traditions of the most successful White immigrants who came before them. (Pause for effect)

What the poor quickly summarized was that the slums of London and Palermo weren’t any different than the slums of New York City, Chicago and St. Louis, and their best chance of permanently leaving the slums was to quickly learn the socio-political system, organize as a political force and focus on their own self-interests and needs.

Focusing on the plight of struggling Native Americans, Blacks, Asians or any other group of people that they were competing with for jobs and a place to live was not a priority. Again, the “name of the game” to becoming a full-fledged “American” was to emulate the actions and attitudes of those who had escaped the ethnic ghettos of Baltimore and Boston and were now financially stable enough to chase their own “American Dream”.

Food for thought: “People who ignore social-injustices solely for personal advancement and self-preservation, are doomed to be haunted their entire life by an insoluble guilt that they will inevitably take to their grave”. – TheodoreW.

Fast Forwarding to 2016

You’re at home and while channel surfing you stumble across a political rally on your big screen television. Normally within a nanosecond you would change the channel but something catches your eye so you sit in your recliner with the remote in your hand and your stare at the screen.

In a sea of faces that look predominately White you see placards and signs that read, “Make America Great Again.” As your mind tries to decipher what your eyes are seeing and what your ears are hearing you wonder, “When did America stop being great”?

From within the crowd, scores of people who appear highly agitated angrily bellow out, “Put her in prison” and “Execute the lying bit@!” Just when you decide you’ve had enough of watching the political version of The Jerry Springer Show on your 55-inch television screen and you’re about to change the channel the cameras at the rally zoom in to the stage and then you see “him”.

Standing in front of a glass podium wearing a blue suit, white shirt and red silk tie, Donald Trump the assumed real estate and business billionaire, turned politician, turned Pied Piper of the Republican Party’s “base”, is whipping the crowd into a religious-like frenzy with an assortment of anti-Mexican, anti-Black Lives Matter and anti-Hillary Clinton banter.

His promises of returning the United States back to a golden era of prosperity and respectability sounds alarmingly like a collection of political stump speeches made by segregationist George Wallace during his 1968 and 1972 U.S. presidential runs and amazingly, the crowd enthusiastically embraces Trump’s message. Donald Trump is in full control of the crowd’s emotions and he knows it.

Although his political speech is short on policy details that would explain explicitly how he would “make America great again”, what he lacks in specificity he makes up with P. T. Barnum showmanship and raw / unbridled anger. It’s as though Donald Trump has tapped into the crowd’s collective mind and the volatile anger he displays on stage matches their own pent up frustrations and fury.

As you stand looking at your television screen somewhat in shock you ask aloud, “why are Trump supporters so angry”? The answer is not easily explained, in fact it’s rather complicated.

Within the “hornet’s nest” of every Donald Trump rally is a hodgepodge of Americans whose “personal anger meter” reads between feeling totally disenfranchised and feeling completely threatened. They compare their collective voices to that of a lion’s roar and like a hungry lion they are ready to gorge their self on anyone that stands in their way.

The birth of the disenfranchised Trump supporter

Once-upon-a-time and not so long ago, America led the world in manufacturing. In big cities and small towns across the U.S., hard-working Americans dedicated their entire adult life to working in mills, mines and factories that produced American made steel, coal, cars, trucks, electronics, refrigerators and textiles. Americans with a limited amount of formal education who were ambitious and didn’t mind getting dirty at work could earn a decent living that provided for all their family’s needs and recreation. It was an era of jobs and respectability.

However, as decades passed and the circumference of the world “shrank”, questionable international trade deals made by Washington D.C. bureaucrats [on behalf of big businesses] that severely restricted American products from flowing freely into foreign markets yet allowed the saturation of low cost foreign goods and services in American retail / service markets became standard business practice.

Within a very short span of time, American jobs that were once abundant, began to rapidly disappear across all 50 states. Americans who once proudly paid their bills on time, were now forced to withdraw every dime from their bank account, sell their home and file for bankruptcy. Blue-collar Americans and the cities and towns around the country that they called home was now on life-support.

Whenever a parent cannot find steady employment and is forced to accept public assistance (food stamps) as an option to feed their family, deep resentment towards the federal government and people “outside of their own tribe” begins to grows like a deadly tumor.

The painful reality of not knowing where their next steady paycheck will come from reduces most individuals to an ugly mindset that is devoid of empathy for anyone who is outside of “their own tribe”. Individuals who never thought of their self as being racist or intolerant were now inconsolably angry at and resentful of “outsiders”. They, the descendants of hard working immigrants who literally built America had been cheated without any warning and they were / are pissed off.

The average coal miner from West Virginia, and the ordinary textile and factory worker from North Carolina and Ohio may not possess an academic degree from an elite university or even a high school diploma, but damn it, they aren’t stupid people. They fully understand that lopsided trade deals that greatly favored the profit margin of big businesses but simultaneously destroyed the livelihoods of blue-collar American workers, is the genesis of their pain and suffering and they are sick and tired of hearing empty promises made by conventional politicians who only appear in their “neck of the woods” when it’s time for re-election. They are extremely “angry birds” and in Donald Trump they have found a presidential candidate who appears to be just as angry as they are.

Out of the shadows comes the threatened racist

There are millions of Americans from across the United States who have intertwined racism, bigotry and sexism with “old time religion” and they’re peddling their hatred as an Alternative-Rightwing, socio-political ideology for White people only. It’s their core belief that God the creator of the Heavens and the Earth delivered “America” exclusively to White men from “heathen” Red men for the sole purpose of establishing and governing a majority White, Judeo-Christian nation that champions their European based beliefs and values.

They’re terrified of the prospect of living in a country where Hispanic-Latin Americans along with African-Americans, not only outnumber Americans of European descent but these “others” through the osmosis of “liberal-democracy” govern over the lives of White men and White women.

It’s because of this predicted “shift in racial-poles” that also equates to a shift in socio-economic power, that millions of White Nationalists across the U.S. are stockpiling tons of ammunition, rifles and guns for their final showdown with the “evil and liberal federal government” and for the moment the only politician they feel “contacted to” is Donald Trump.

When Donald Trump demonstratively promises to “Make America Great Again” by building a wall that keeps “dangerous” Mexicans out of the U.S., while promising to become America’s “inner city law and order” President, they clearly hear Donald Trump making a direct pledge to them that he and he alone will save the White race from the thuggish, race-mixing mongrels. It’s that simple.

In 2016, disenfranchised Americans and racist Americans are in bed together with the same presidential candidate and they could care less if he degrades and gropes women, if he is a racist, a bigot, a xenophobic, is ignorant to the extreme dangers of nuclear proliferation and... if he pals around with Russian communists. In fact, they more than likely consider 4 out of the 6 aforementioned character flaws as being “tolerable” human / American shortfalls.

It doesn’t matter to them that during his political stump speeches Trump declares “economic trade war” on the Chinese government, even though it’s a fact that he outsources many of his company’s manufacturing jobs to China, India and other low wage paying countries. And neither do they care about his childish rants and tweets that have given worry to both Democrat and Republican to the status of his overall mental health.

In their eyes Donald Trump is a successful television star and business man who only dates and marries young and beautiful women. “The Don” resides in magnificent penthouses and mansions while flying around the world in his personal jet, and to be quite honest...they want a piece of “his action”. They want to believe that the “emperor is wearing clothes” although their eyes tell them he is buck naked. Their need to believe in the pixie dust magic of the Flim Flam Man far outweighs whatever consequences may come to the world in the wake of a Donald Trump victory over Hillary Clinton on November 8, 2016.

In the end

They are ready to return to the way “things use to be” in the United States and they are pinning all their socio-economic hopes and aspirations on Donald Trump. Con man or not, he is their clear choice to be the man / president who will lead their divided nation for at least four more years. For these folks, November 8, 2016 couldn’t come soon enough, and indeed for some it’s their last hurrah at political significance.

Le Fin

Shame, shame, Republican Party!
You would make Lincoln weep.
He was the first who, bold and hearty,
Roused the Elephant from his sleep.

How dare you -- Senate and Leader, too,
Become the dumb Monkey, deaf and blind,
That protects a dumb Donkey, and kisses his behind!

Your House equivalents are guilty, too –
Adopting your sans-sense attitude.
Not one of them dared to raise their voice
And interfere with the Devil’s Choice.

And thee, self-chosen and stuffed with pride,
You flaunt your sins,
And your forgiving God
Offers hits manufactured nod.

That is just as well, as your true faith
Begins and ends with you.
Faith in your country you conjure up, too.
You embrace the flag,
But it’s all about you.

Worst of all, though, is your Pied Piper’s pitch –
How you deceive a trailing, poor, sonofabitch.
But, for you, that’s quite easy;
Without Hamelin’s pipe,
You spread crumbs of hatred,
But soon they’ll be gone.
Sans pipe and Oz’s curtain,
The Truth then will dawn.

Of course, you are not to blame, in all totality;
You siphoned from our historical hose of venality.
There is a lesson for us to mull over:
When Sam, in the future, says, “Come hither,”
And his tie is red, long and Chinese-custom-made –
Scream, “No, fie, you monster fake!” –
Do a one-eighty and get thee fast thither!.

Thus, Republicans, your discord is complete.
You offend the poor Elephant’s; ears.
You leave naught but bitter gall to eat –
And bring Old Abe Lincoln down to tears.

Image: Weeping Lincoln © The Art Institute of Chicago