The vogue word on news these days is “conversation.” Americans are supposed to have a conversation about racism; a general suggests Trump have a conversation with military leaders about Putin. Is it like a talking to, a scolding, a polite way of dealing with irreconcilable differences, or just a bullshit session?

To update Marx: “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, & human beings are at last compelled to face with sober senses our real conditions of life & our relations with our kind.”

What has not changed overnight is the barbarism of war, occupation, & genocide in several countries nor the responsibility of men & women of good will around the world to unite & oppose them whatever military force conducts them.

This is Mosul, Iraq, a killing field of US militarism since 1990, now being fought under the rubric of fighting ISIS. This child, one of thousands displaced by the war, lives in Khazer refugee camp near Mosul.

Progressives around the world need to get over electoral idiocies & disappointments to forge unity against the unfolding of Armageddon in the Middle East.

US out of Iraq & Afghanistan! Stop Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians in Syria! US, Russia, Iran, & all foreign military forces out of Syria.

(Photo by Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters)

Having trouble getting your tongue around the phrase “President Trump”? Having nightmares about those awful Trump kids dining at state dinners & traveling on Air Force One on our dime–or rather off our Social Security & food stamp checks?

Now we can all see Russia from our back porch. Sarah Palin comes home to roost.

Fox News began what will become a resounding rebuke from Clinton supporters: third party candidates stole the election & assured the Trump win. That’s called thinking within the box.

In a democracy, people have a right to run for political office. They have a right to reject an undemocratic electoral system offering only two conservative choices. They have a right to think otherwise than within the two-party death trap run by millionaires.

If you want limited choices, there are one-party countries called dictatorships where you can move. They’ll tell you what to think. Or else. But if you live in a democracy, you have to accept that not everyone sees things your way or just the two authorized ways.

If you want to blame third party candidates for the 2016 election returns, it’s only because you’re a sore loser. Get over it. Think of what it’s like for the majority of Americans who find both candidates & the third party candidates intolerable. Either you believe in democracy or you don’t. If you don’t, find a dictator & cry your heart out to him/her. We don’t want to hear it.

Then there are those who deplored third party candidates for robbing votes from Clinton & ushering in the Trump Apocalypse. They had their hearts set on Clinton imposing a No Fly Zone & US intervention against Assad.

They tried so hard to make war-mongering seem progressive. But to principled antiwar activists & to those who believe in democracy, there is no humanitarian bombing. That’s just the way it is & no amount of panicked rhetoric will change that an iota. They need to stop kidding themselves & trying to fool us.

What will the haters do now that Clinton’s not around to dump on? I’ve seen abusive stuff against her that takes my breath away & by people who think they’re being progressive in their venom. That’s not the politics of social transformation. It’s just the horse manure of woman-hating.

I am forced to concede the election to Donald Trump. In a pig’s eye!

US elections are now officially a dog & pony show of excruciating duration proving beyond dispute, just as we learn in social studies class, that anyone can become president. Especially the most despicable & contemptible among us if he is worth a billion bucks & talks trash.

One doesn’t have to be a Clinton supporter to see misogyny played a big role in her defeat & Trump’s empty triumph. That’s a major political regression & a call to arms. But who didn’t Trump hate on? Mexicans, Blacks, Muslims, women, immigrants & refugees–those of us at the very heart of politics today & now the forces of social resistance & transformation.

Pepe Escobar is jubilant at Clinton’s defeat & delighted Putin will be feted at the White House–only proving that “geopolitical analysts” like himself substitute flatulence for politics & get away with it because they’re male & feed the same malignant forces as Trump.

We have a lot of work to do. In the work of social transformation, the election of Trump is just an impediment on the road, not a defeat. There was no way working people could win in this election.

Is anybody else’s head exploding at the thought of President Trump? Millions voted for him after all the hateful, racist, misogynist things he said while she at least played the populist schtick.

Trump is so grotesque that Clinton & probably most of us thought she was a shoe-in. Who could ever imagine this was the state of American politics?

But not to despair. We can check statistics tomorrow but normally the overwhelming number of eligible voters don’t bother to even register. The majority traditionally vote “No, on all of the above.”

The president does not determine US policy. If Trump wins, his learning curve on that will be fast-tracked & he will be taught to walk the walk & talk the talk of a president. His election may be proof more than anything else that US elections are indeed rigged.

I won’t be disappointed regardless of who wins. I never invest an ounce of expectations in the US presidency since all of my life has been in opposition to their policies & wars. That won’t change.

In discussing the neck-in-neck election returns, Fox News is expressing concern about the “existential threat of Islamic terrorism.” Knock-knock, is anybody home there? American voters are nearly evenly divided between Clinton & Trump & Fox thinks Islamic terrorists are a concern? I’m worried about my neighbors now. Which American terrorist & crackpot did they vote for?

Is it unseemly to start taking take odds now on how long before Melania dumps Trump?