The earth is too smart for us to break through

[sovay]

I know it is no longer news in the ravenous cycle of horrors that passes for the front page these days, but the fact that the man in the White House took a literal wrecking ball to it feels once again so unnecessarily on the nose, at least if it were satire I could be laughing. I know buildings are not human lives such as this administration ends and ruins with such pleasure of ownership, but the roses of the concrete-choked garden were real things, not just symbols, and so were the bricks and the tiles of the East Wing. I have nothing revelatory to say about this particular destruction in the midst of so much more personal violence except that I didn't want to let it slide into a tacit shrug, as if it were an ordinary exercise of presidential powers, another rock through the Overton window. Or a bulldozer.

Comments

[selkie]

It’s a bit horrible here since they dissolved the House. N keeps giving me lifts so I don’t get into any particular trouble on the trains, because the MPs have come over the state line now and you know I do love a little particular trouble.

[sovay]

It’s a bit horrible here since they dissolved the House. N keeps giving me lifts so I don’t get into any particular trouble on the trains, because the MPs have come over the state line now and you know I do love a little particular trouble.

It was certainly something to step off the train and see that much militarization. I am glad N is keeping you safe.

[selkie]

I don’t know why either of you worry.

*snaps, snarls*

I’m sweet.

[gwynnega]

I have never felt particularly attached to the White House as a building, but I find the East Wing being reduced to rubble incredibly upsetting (as well as, as you said, way too on the nose).

[sovay]

I have never felt particularly attached to the White House as a building, but I find the East Wing being reduced to rubble incredibly upsetting (as well as, as you said, way too on the nose).

I think it is incredibly upsetting. It's razing history.

[cmcmck]

It's odd how USians constantly go on about how wonderful our old buildings are then destroy fine examples of their own!

[sovay]

It's odd how USians constantly go on about how wonderful our old buildings are then destroy fine examples of their own!

Has the man in the White House ever said anything wonderful about your old buildings? I would think they would not be ostentatious enough for him.

[cmcmck]

I'm wondering if the whole ballroom thing has to do with his visit to Windsor which has a particularly fine one (more than one) and you know how much he wants to be royal!

[sartorias]

Very well said. To me, the symbolism is so horrid; the careless ending of life (whether human or vegetable) and the whim to destroy public property in order to build Croesus's throne room, excuse me, ballroom.

[sovay]

Very well said. To me, the symbolism is so horrid; the careless ending of life (whether human or vegetable) and the whim to destroy public property in order to build Croesus's throne room, excuse me, ballroom.

The ballroom is so perfectly trivial. The White House has an extremely famous reception room for dances and ceremonies and other functions. But it probably does not look enough like an expensive cheap hotel.

[sabotabby]

You couldn't write this shit in a story.

[sovay]

You couldn't write this shit in a story.

I'm really very tired of reality exceeding a reasonable suspension of disbelief.

[muccamukk]

He tore down the fucking White House!

What the fuck!?

/All I got

[sovay]

/All I got

It's all you need, really.

[elisem]

I'm there with you on that. It's all I got, too.

[sovay]

I'm there with you on that. It's all I got, too.

It says all the important things.

[davidgillon]

Even we (British Army, War of 1812) only singed it a little!

[sovay]

Even we (British Army, War of 1812) only singed it a little!

I had just been talking recently to fleurdelis41 about how the Burning of Washington was the very first thing I knew about the War of 1812. Apparently it is historically contentious whether the succeeding hurricane and tornado really hastened the British retreat or just wrecked the town a little more, but I still think they should fall upon anyone who wantonly destroys the Capitol. Since the space rock appears to be taking its sweet astronomical time.

[minoanmiss]

Well said. ugh.

[sovay]

Well said. ugh.

Thank you. It is exhausting to have so much of the news be not just mediocre but repugnant.

[asakiyume]

In theory I don't mind changes to the White House, but it sure is something to see a whole chunk of it just disappear.

What I do mind is the display of wasteful, entitled self-centeredness. It's so entirely, entirely ME ME ME ME ME.

[sovay]

In theory I don't mind changes to the White House, but it sure is something to see a whole chunk of it just disappear.

Renovations are common. Demolitions are not.

What I do mind is the display of wasteful, entitled self-centeredness. It's so entirely, entirely ME ME ME ME ME.

Yes. And it isn't his house. It isn't one of his resorts. It was and is a building that belongs to the nation. He treats everything like a toy to break and throw away and he has no right to. Legally, literally. I do not want him to get away with leaving the world in petulant ruins.