Mountain Of Despair.

When I first seen Columbia, that sky was the brightest, bluest sky that there ever was. Seemed like Heaven. Then your eyes adjusted to the light, and you see that sea of white faces looking hard back at you. ~Daisy Fitzroy, Bioshock Infinite

I saw this earlier tonight. Look, y'all, my Mom's partner and I basically spent all day recycling our Combat Triage training to treat my Mom's Labradoodle, who got injured this morning.

I wasn't in any kind of mood for this:

Asian-American author, white audience that's supposedly a "women's group" and childish bullshit like deliberately mispronouncing her name, giving her a shitty introduction, etc. And evidently, the last person she spoke to was explicitly racist and said she got in line just to ask "Why do you illegals complain about America" or some shit.

If you can't see how that's wrong, you're part of the problem.

Presumably, Qian Julie Wang is an American citizen. I have no reason to assume otherwise. But it doesn't actually matter if she is or not. She believed in America enough to come here from some other place. I have to respect that.

As far as I'm concerned if she faced adversity to come here, that's more than good enough for me as to why she should be gladly accepted, In fact, such demands it. Certainly, she lives here. She deserves the same respect as anybody else. More even, as far as I'm concerned, because she's a published author. Hell, that's why she was even there in front of these ridiculous people!

But there's more (and less) to it than that. 

I don't think this type of shit should ever happen to anybody. I don't give a damn if she just showed up, or how she got here. She is a person and deserves to be treated accordingly.

If it were me making these decisions the people who did this stupid bullshit would be lined up and forced to apologize, and to fucking mean it, because they'd face hard, swift punishment beforehand, get talked to like little kids about why what they did was wrong, and they would get punished more if they did not. 

I am a former-conservative white man who lives in rural middle-of-nowhere Northern Michigan and I was raised in a Christian tradition. In fact, that's why I'm tired of this garbage, why aren't you?

This crap isn't what I was taught.

It's not going to stop until We, the people, stand up and stop it.

Yes, treat these racist jerks like rotten little kids, do it in front of their friends and make sure everybody knows why. All, and what, these people deserve is the equivalent of an old school pants-down spanking in the middle of the grocery store, rhetorical or otherwise. 

It's what they might understand. If people will not feel shame for bad behavior on their own, you embarrass them, you create shame and then you give it to them. And you don't give a damn if they get mad or hate you for it. My Grandma taught me that. Don't these people have grandmothers?

These fucking people act like they're the highest caste in a caste system that America has never really (officially at least) had and is Constitutionally and De Jure against, even though it's unofficially *There* as all hell, despite the fact that you can be fired or get sued or if it gets bad enough, even face criminal charges for violating somebody's rights. These fucking people's motherfucking ancestors tried to destroy America...to make their racial caste system official and because the United States of America as it existed in 1860 wasn't shitty enough for them, basically...and they wanted to preserve slavery more than they wanted to preserve even their own lives and livelihoods. 

Even though the majority of Southerners did not benefit from a system which, in fact, devalued everyone's labor except that of wealthy large-scale landholders. It's not an accident that once they stopped counting only the wealth or other metrics of the white people who lived in the plantation mansions, the Southern states various societal metrics sank like a stone. Hell, 100 years ago those states were regarded as backward and barbaric. There was in fact, a concerted effort by elites and Hollywood to bring them back into the fold socially. I mean, what else do you think Birth of a Nation and Gone With The Wind and all those other kind of movies were?

After these people lost the Civil War their descendants tried to preserve "Racial hierarchy" with Jim Crow laws and segregation and they lost there, too. (And if you think that shit was just in the South you have another thing coming.) But too many people tolerate this bullshit until it makes them look bad, and only then do they clap back.

Because then, as now, the majority of people...particularly Americans...are completely checked out and just mailing it in (in participation in life terms) until bad thing X or social problem Y affects them directly. It's stupid, and here it goes against the fact that America was Constitutionally designed to be governed by and for We The People as an aware, educated society who cared about equality and having a say in how their country was run...and we have, since fairly early in our history...been working to expand freedom and the franchise and rights of every kind until now that I'm 48, rights are being extended to people and situations that I couldn't have imagined when I was 18.

And personally I'm fine with that, and I used to be a Republican. Not much about my views has really changed except opinions on a few social issues, but not being a fascist basically by default makes me a Leftist.

A huge reason for that is that at the same time, also from right out the gate at the beginning, there's always been those people who sought to take advantage of people's bad character and inattentiveness on a societal level, and to inflame a malignant sense of self-interest and selfishness to get people to vote against their own best interests...usually all that is offered in return is racism, religious extremism or more of some other societal Heroin. What that is may vary with the times, but "Conservatives" entrenched interests and the wealthy will dole that shit out like drugs. And those people are getting worse. They no longer see America as useful. This country, as dysfunctional as it is, is no longer shitty enough for them.

It's how you get shit like this.

And honestly, I don't remember seeing or hearing about "Let's Go Brandon stores" or "Trump stores" or anything like that a year or two ago or even in early 2017 before Trump's popularity started to tank and all the Trump Supporters got suspiciously quiet. And as regards this particular pictured example I'll take note of the Confederate flag right in the front window. Yeah, there's a reason for that. These people don't give a shit about America, except for how it relates to Trump. If America continues to reject Trump, these people will reject America.

It's a cult.

And if you think they're going to wait until next November or in 2024 to do that, you're delusional. In this dumbest possible timeline, the dumbest shit imaginable could set these people off at any time.

Personally I think it'll start someplace like Idaho and the first people to be victims of these fucking people and their hankering for Civil War will themselves be other Republicans. 

Solely because they weren't crazy or evil or racist enough.

This is why I keep trying to warn any non-fascist or non-insane conservatives to stop tolerating this bullshit. Of course, what that seems to consistently get us at the Federal level is Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney. You might get a small number of other Republicans on certain issues, or a larger number of Republicans on some other things and that's OK.

But the base, the core of the Party at this point is dumb, racist fascists and until that changes there's no saving it.

And systems that create more people who are dumb, racist fascists serve moneyed interests who either believe in fascism or believe they can buy their way out of being affected.

Why in the hell else do you think we have, in too many places, educational systems that basically make teachers beg (in one way or another) or pay out-of-pocket for the materials they need to do their work?

Why do you think these same people create systems where those they deem to be of lower class than themselves are more likely to end up overweight and unhealthy in addition to being uneducated? Why the hell do you think so much of this country nowadays runs on lower-paying service jobs? People who are broke, unhealthy and stuck working all the time are less of a threat to "Authority" doubly so if they don't have the knowledge or the means to question or to even understand what things like authority and proper governance really are?

There's two main pillars holding this shit up:

#1 If you don't know anything, you can believe whatever you want. This is where...and more important, why...the popularity of conspiracy theories and shitty religious doctrines like the Prosperity Gospel gets boosted.

#2 Without knowledge, without truth...without the desire or intellectual rigor to acquire the former or determine or even pursue the latter...there is no freedom. There is no basis for resisting Power.

Education, interacting with other cultures, knowledge, mixing with other people, travel...even things like government or military service can make people care about or understand the world or be less racist and thus fall out of the group I describe as "These fucking people."

And for the most part, that makes them less likely to be fascists, or at least not the kind that's prevalent nowadays (See also: Bill Barr, Mike Pence, Tea Party Joe Walsh, people who despite being up to their eyeballs in this crap, could one way or another say no to it at some point.) 

Why else do you think the active dumbing-down of our government and elected officials has started?

Why else would people like Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene even be tolerated...by anybody?

Fundamentally, it keeps coming down to the same things, every damned time.

If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen. You want a better world? You have to be a better person. You have to do the work. You have to give a shit about other people. You have to stand up for the less fortunate. It's hard, do it anyway, because it's the right thing to do.

And this? This ain't it.

Anybody what tells you anything else is a liar.

Part I

Part II

Gonna make a change

For once in my life
It's gonna feel real good
Gonna make a difference
Gonna make it right

As I, turn up the collar on
My favorite winter coat
This wind is blowing my mind
I see the kids in the street
With not enough to eat
Who am I, to be blind pretending not to see their needs?

A summer's disregard
A broken bottle top
And a one man's soul
They follow each other on the wind ya know
'Cause they got nowhere to go
That's why I want you to know

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could've been any clearer
If they wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change.

~Michael Jackson, Man In The Mirror.

Look in the mirror. Is this what you want? 

<---------<<<<

...

You only get to choose once. The stone of hope or the mountain of despair.

It is late, choose now.

Or you can choose this:

But you have to make the decision and stick by it. 

There are no half measures.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. ~Martin Luther King Jr.

Choose