Never Enough (Reason For The Season 2023, Five.)

Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other.

That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. 

In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. 

~Malcolm X, letter written following the Hajj.

...

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

I just saw this.

Stephen Miller saying if we don't "Round up all the Latinos" or some shit "A generation from now people will not "know what country they're living in."

Bro, tell that to all the Latino construction workers who come into my work wearing their American flag shirts and their Under Armor hats and buying their Bud Light along with their Coronas, and they're all like that...whether they're citizens or not. And I can tell you who is and who isn't because I check their ID's when they buy their beer.

And that's the fucking point. 

America ain't "White People Nation" if you want that shit, move to Russia...except Russia ain't all "White" either, bro, and hell the WASP-y Elks Club shits you're trying to pretend to be like never considered any Russians to be "White" either, until after Communism fell. I was a goddamned adult by the time White-On-White racism fully ceased to be a thing.

America continues, perpetuates itself and survives by new people signing onto the American experiment, American Capitalism constantly needs new bodies to generate new revenue streams, we are not static.

But some things don't change too much, they just rearrange themselves a bit here and there. Cultural and social change is a thing, here it has to be. 

Let me give you an example; A family friend and seasonal neighbor died of cancer recently. Mr. Ferguson was always (and his wife eventually became) a Canadian-American dual citizen. He was an engineer of some kind by trade, and he'd served in the Royal Canadian Air Force as a young man. He eventually got his doctorate from Notre Dame and became a college professor or something. His daughter Anya was one of my childhood friends (and one of my first girlfriends, one summer.) These people were never especially political or religious, but they were well-traveled and ya know...they gave a shit. Their kids all grew up to have cool jobs and stuff. My childhood girlfriend, their oldest daughter, worked for Outward Bound for years. Their youngest son for example was a sword-fighting instructor for some kind of Medieval society and works as an Arborist in North Carolina since COVID-19 hit.

This old guy's funeral handout had a black-and-white picture of him as a young man, standing next to a CF-101 Voodoo jet fighter on the front cover (and mind you he never talked about that stuff...though he was thrilled to go through my pictures that I took when I was in the Air Force one time) a poem about Notre Dame university on the inside flap...the usual details about his life...but it was the details of his funeral that interested me. There were two Episcopal priests, women with matching surnames (likely meaning a lesbian couple) who officiated. A Canadian Anglican chaplain (ex-RCAF and from some veteran's org judging from the acronym-salad that went with his name) also gave some kind of a speech, as did a Rabbi from a synagogue near where they used to live in Chicago (His wife is very-secular Jewish and has never been religious) On the back was a picture of him with his family, not too long after his diagnosis but from when he was still in decent enough shape to function.

Things change...but a lot of elements of the underlying cultures don't change too much. That kind of thing isn't really what any of this is about.

We're not the Middle East where families might have lived in the same neighborhood or on the same street since before America was America. We don't want to be, either. We simply, as a people, do not have the patience for it. Americans don't play that, yo. Hell, we'd get bored.

Well, unless you're into the kind of joyless, sneering domination of some Other that it takes for dudes like Stephen Miller to even get an erection, that is. Or unless you're cool with the kind of weirdo bootlicking Gimp bullshit that drives guys like Dan McLaughlin.

And I'm frankly tired of the lowest common denominator wanting this country to be some kind of Christian version of Saudi Arabia, or Republican North Korea, or whatever the fuck. The economy would crash, rich people would lose a bunch of money, actual Americans vs. Ancient Lands wannabes like these assholes would figure out at about the same time that an actual armed society isn't conducive to their ethno-religious bullshit, if from different sides. 

People like Stephen Miller and his fellow travelers would find themselves hanging out at the Esso like Mussolini after the Partisans got through with him.

And that's exactly why, now that the Colorado Supreme Court said that Trump...being an insurrectionist as defined by the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, can't be on the ballot in the state...you're going to see a metric shit-ton more calls for secession, half-ass attempts to "remove" Biden from the ballot in a couple Red States or some shit...and shit like that. 

These fucking people know...oh yes, they do...they know most of us aren't on board with their bullshit. So they want to do what they always do when things don't go their way; Cut and run, take their ball and go home, and hopefully find somebody else to blame on the flipside.

Because fundamentally, it's not really the right "ethno-religious" composition of people that these motherfuckers are after. It's not about participation in Capitalism, not really. Racism is a part of it...but it's not the whole story.

You could let these fucking people break off a chunk of America for themselves, let them force white women to have like 20 babies each, let them kick everybody else but "Conservative" White People out and mandate the teaching of White Anglo Saxon Protestantism while appointing Trump as their Jesus for all of eternity. How all the "Traditionalist" Catholics think they'd fit in here, I have no idea...and let these scumbags give all the money to rich people except for that needed to Immanentize their Fascist Eschaton...and it'd still never be enough.

It's not about Christianity...hell it's not even really about Whiteness. Make it about that, and these goddamn fanatics will move the goalposts because the cruelty and the fanaticism are the goddamn point. And they see Trump...a man so devoid of any internal morality or values that he instantly becomes a poodle to any "Authoritarian" in the fucking room...as a way to get their Fanaticism Nation, as the means to their end of a bacchanalia of cruelty and slaughter.

How these fucking lazy-ass idiots think they'll maintain some kind of iron-handed, straight-backed, stiff-necked Hugo Boss-uniformed Fascism when they couldn't be bothered to take 2 seconds to put a mask on in the face of an existential threat from a goddamned virus, I have no idea.

And the same goes for their far-Left wannabe-enablers who can't even stand mild criticism on social media.

If you want a better nation, you have to be a better citizen...and this ain't it. I don't know who the fuck people are polling or whatever, or why so many of these idiots are hell-bent on enabling Trump because they think he'll make them rich, but the only thing I can tell you is...ignore that shit and show up anyway because there's more of us than there are of them.

And that's how we win.

That's how we keep America being American.

Either you believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. ~Luke 2:1-14

Four

The only other important thing to be said about Fear & Loathing at this time is that it was fun to write, and that's rare — for me, at least, because I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like fucking — which is fun only for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling. Nothing is fun when you have to do it — over and over, again and again — or else you'll be evicted, and that gets old. So it's a rare goddamn trip for a locked-in, rent-paying writer to get into a gig that, even in retrospect, was a kinghell, highlife fuck-all from start to finish... and then to actually get paid for writing this kind of manic gibberish seems genuinely weird; like getting paid for kicking Agnew in the balls. So maybe there's hope. Or maybe I'm going mad... In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile — and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: Not necessarily to Win, but mainly to keep from Losing Completely... The Swine are gearing down for a serious workout this time around... So much, then, for The Road — and for the last possibilities of running amok in Las Vegas... Well, at least, I'll know I was there, neck deep in the madness, before the deal went down, and I got so high and wild that I felt like a two-ton Manta ray jumping all the way across the Bay of Bengal. ~Hunter S. Thompson