The idiomatic phrase, “bending the knee” is defined something like this:
“To swear fealty or allegiance to another person. To submit to or show reverence toward a divine power. To show undue deference, obedience, or support for someone or something.”
Focus for a moment on the word “undue” above. It’s the key.
“Undue” is defined as not appropriate, warranted, or justified; excessive or overextended.
There’s no point really in being duly or unduly outraged any longer by cowardly corporate titans, academic institutions, legal firms, media mavens, and politicians bending the knee to the child rapist and convicted felon Donald Trump. Capitulation and public humiliation has become the name of the game for those who’ve lost any sense of honor and dignity. It appears now that the game has moved into a different quarter, to see who can be the most unduly outrageous in bootlicking and ass kissing.
When CEOs like Apple’s Tim Cook start bearing ostentatious gifts featuring his company’s treasured and expensively protected branding on a glass plaque, mounted on gold, you have to wonder just how little self-respect these once corporate giants have for themselves, much less their companies.
Sure, they will say it is to protect the business, market share, and their stock holders. That’s largely true. When threatened with a corporate beheading, I’m sure most would prefer keeping their corporate head on their corporate shoulders, shrinking and cowering that they may be. I guess in the circles they travel in, it’s cooler to be a part of the cruel and vulgar crowd that’s grabbed them by the short hairs and made them squeal like so many pigs in a pen, than it is to stand for what’s right.
I’ve given up being shocked, disappointed, and pissed off when things like this happen. It’s become so routine. I look forward to the day when I may run into some of these cowards by chance and laughing in their face, after I spit in it. They may deserver their bonuses after keeping the profits rolling in, but they more than deserve public derision.
I’ve had to swallow some shit in my lifetime catering to donors in the not-for-profit arts game. I get the impulse, and I get the desperation. I’m proud to say I’ve turned away some donations. I’m also ashamed to say I had to accept a few with conditions I didn’t like. So, I get it. I will say that as personally demeaning as the latter instances were, they never jeopardized the image of the company I was working for. I’ll carry my indignity and the tasted of that shit from those instances to my grave.
If this chapter in the decline of humanity ever turns around the only thing certain is that the the shame these corporate, academic, legal, media, and political dwarves have earned will forever stain them and the brands they represent. They will be duly branded.
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The political party that has been tying itself into knots supporting him and the political party that should be opposing him have both covered themselves in cowardice. The media that cherishes its hallowed 4th estate has found new and very poor ways to tell us we shouldn’t believe our eyes and ears. Men with power and money willingly submit like suckling pigs hoping they won’t get led to slaughter. Let’s not forget the deluded cult members and greedy bastards who think this guy is doing things that will help them.
Woe be unto them.
Woe be unto us all.
I’m not saying we should accept this. We shouldn’t. We should fight it with every ounce of strength we have. But let’s for goodness sake acknowledge what we’re fighting and quit the pretense. The man sees himself as a king and those who know better are way to content to play the game. Those that don’t, but cowardly won’t call bullshit loud and often enough, are essentially giving him the runway for all of the planes to continue to crashing among us.
To be honest, I think he’s somewhat oblivious in the world this decaying orange turd thinks he’s living in. He’s already on the throne and supported, willingly or no, by those who have any modicum of power in this country as they keep fluffing him while they wait for him to rape the next porn star that crosses his path. If it all one day comes crashing down he’ll be as surprised as anybody that he takes down with him.
Hans Christian Anderson could never have imagined his story quite like this. Perhaps we do need a child to lead us, because the adults in the room can’t seem to find their way out from under their own shadows.
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Of course I’m referring to all of the insane stunts that are happening during these early days of the end of the American Experiment. Don’t blowback on the use of the word “stunts.” People get hurt doing stunt work all the time. Some have died. Both are going to happen at some point in our future.
But make no mistake, these “shock and awe” stunts are literally intended to do real harm while overwhelming any attempt to impede them. It’s designed to create chaos. Sadly, it’s working.
To say the Democrats are in disarray is to spit out a bad cliché like a rotten sunflower seed. To say whatever used to be the GOP has surrendered everything except their daughters to Trump is also old news. That last part might also be premature. To say the fourth estate is complicit misses the point completely. Ask yourself where the cameras were during all of Elon Musk’s frat boy takeovers this weekend. Perhaps if a plane had crashed into the Treasury building they would have been there. To say the oligarchs and tech bros are the real winners is watching a trailer for a comedy action thriller that leaves out the spoiler in which everybody dies in the end.
Josh Marshall has two good pieces about this that are worth reading 
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 