"Not after Hitler and Stalin"?

The unmentionable odour of death / Offends the September night ... Defenceless under the night / Our world in stupor lies.

So wrote a psychically numbed W.H. Auden, 1939. A quarter-century later he seemed to believe that once-stuporous humanity had, however, acquired some smarts — rather considerable smarts. We shan’t, not since Stalin and Hitler / trust ourselves ever again: we know that, subjectively / all is possible.

Indeed we've plenty of such knowledge, no subjectivity required. Yet somehow, the Stalins and Hitlers of this century appear to have gained our trust. How else to explain the unmentionable odour of death that offends the August night? How to explain, once again, that our world in stupor lies?

Gaza City "is on a countdown to oblivion," observes the BBC. For Hitler's vilest stepchild, perhaps, and unquestionably his most ironic, Bibi Netanyahu, has ordered the Israeli military "to embark on a devastating new phase of the war."

The Levantine Führer's most trusting partner in death has of course been the United States. Bibi is but the latest in our knowledgeable confoundment; a mere three years after Adolf blew his brains out, a vociferous George C. Marshall told Harry, Don't do it, you're just asking for trouble — endless fucking trouble, and by no means only for us.

George had the Palestinians in mind, for one. There was also that whole Arab world thing. But those closest to, and even inside, Israel would come to know what "endless" really means, especially when attached to abundant fucking trouble. "Now it seems a new cycle [of devastation] is about to unfold," further observes the BBC. Exactly when did the other wrap up? ask the Palestinians.

Elsewhere, Stalin is grinning, for his most astute pupil has got this. Ten days ago, the Kremlin newswire RIA Novosti published a couple of op-eds: one was titled "There is no other option: no one should remain alive in Ukraine"; its sister piece, "Noted: Ukraine will end very soon." That reporting from the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for War.

The Institute is doing a bang-up business these days, what with Bibi and Vladimir Putin in power — the latter, another bloodthirsty bastard still trusted by the United States. The NY Times writes that "the West has treated Mr. Putin largely as a pariah since he invaded Ukraine in 2022." In other true words, the U.S. is no longer a part of the West — that term being a useful abridgement of the phrase the civilized world.

We ejected ourselves, in part because the mass-murdering Russian is no pariah to Donald. For that reason, "Trump will meet Vladimir Putin next Friday in Alaska," continues the Times' report. Unreported is the meeting's geographical pertinence — nay, necessity. Far more logistically logical for both dictators would be a get-together in Europe. But there, and most everywhere, Moscow's war criminal has a warrant out for his arrest.

This (pardon my language) "summit" is meant to accomplish what? Rack up one achievement already: "The mere fact that an American president is willing to meet with him is considered a diplomatic victory for the Kremlin." The bastard — Russia's bastard, just to clarify — can't lose; such will be next week's only accomplishment: "Putin has intentionally put himself in a position where he cannot present any peace settlement that falls short of his original war aims." See above: RIA Novosti's op-eds.

There's a nexus of evil in the horrors of Israel/Palestine and Russia/Ukraine captured unwittingly by the honorable Walter Shaub, the former director of the US Office of Government Ethics. In a recent essay, his very first sentence begins: "Donald Trump’s fascist takeover of government is a comprehensive affair...."

By comprehensive, Schaub means the thoroughness with which Trump "has been dismantling our democratic infrastructure." On the home front, true enough. And yet his fascism has a global reach as well; he not only shares it with Netanyahu and Putin, he makes their fascism possible in regional reach.

Indifference to whatever Bibi does and a bit more dithering with Vladimir, it's all just another day in the comprehensiveness of Donald Trump's fascism. Now we're the psychically numbed, our world in stupor lies.

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