Said The Spider To The Fly (American Revelation XV, Seven.)

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning.

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran

I saw this yesterday.

Candace Owens, terrified...terrified, I tell you...at the thought of a woman being a pilot.

Having met a few female pilots over the years...most of them military pilots, and all of the rest in my particular case having been Veterans, at that...what utter horseshit. I guess it's just...easier to be a grifting Republican apologist for the Bad Idea Of The Moment??

Sorry, Candy, but it's been my personal experience that some people...of any gender, sex, race, etc...just have a natural aptitude for flying an A-10 Warthog, a KC-135 Stratotanker or a UH-60 Blackhawk and ain't no good at lying for a living.

Likewise, I've known a hell of a lot of women who ain't no good at the things of hearth and home, or who have no interest whatever in kitchen, church, and children. Maybe it's just me but I've got a couple of ex-partners out there I'm glad I didn't have kids with because I wouldn't have trusted them to raise a cat. 

And yes, while I'm at it, I've known a hell of a lot of dudes out there completely unsuited for any aspects of fatherhood (Again, note: I don't have any kids and have always practiced safe sex.)

Worse, I know a lot of guys who are paying child support, including a couple who'll likely have back child support taken out of their estates, because they didn't pay it when they were supposed to.

Gender roles and shit are social constructs, and it's the 21st goddamn century. 

No one is required to abide by any of that crap if it doesn't fit them, or even if they simply don't want to. In fact, a lot of people are totally unsuited for whatever Stereotypes "Conservatives" think they should be living according to.

And no one...I mean absolutely no one...is granted some kind of special Gnosis or omniscience simply because they have the right "Beliefs."

(And anybody who says they do have such, is full of shit.)

God does not grant special powers to White Conservatives.

Seriously, what the fuck do you think this is, Dungeons & Dragons and you're a Cleric of Jesus?? Fuck Off.

I mean, fuck, come on now. What's wrong with you??

More to the fucking point, this is America, where not only do you not have to be a White Christian Conservative Dude to do things, but pretty much anybody can do whatever they want...or at least, whatever they have it in themselves to do or that they can scrape up the resources to accomplish.

Yes, America really likes the latter (I mean, bro, how the fuck do you think Elon Musk got anywhere, certainly not on natural ability but dude has a lot of damn money and he's had an idea or two, some of them good, some of them not so good) but also going way back in our history (and often, very grudgingly at first) America genuinely reveres the former, because in the end, most of the ideas and inventions that have made America a Power in the World did not come from people who were already rich.

And the whole point, literally the secret to our success, is that anybody can come here and buy into that. Perversely, again, see also; Elon Musk. If America First had been around back in the 1980's that dude might be a fat-cat in Pretoria now, or maybe running a computer company in Kingston, Ontario, but America wouldn't know who he was in 2024. And yes, that would be a bad thing.

On the face of it, it seems like we should extend the same fucking courtesy to other people, doesn't it?? If you have the capability and drive to get here, the willpower to do something, and the guts to serve, cool. If you want to be an American, especially given the "Warts and all" of our history...it shouldn't even be a question; Welcome Aboard, Lance Corporal.

(I mean, dude's got the Hollister shirt and everything, and he's a Marine. All he needs for the full setup at this point is a can of Copenhagen chewing tobacco in his back pocket and a car payment, but he's from Texas so neither of those things would be unusual in and of itself...Indian-American or not.)

Do you fucking get it now??

And, mind you, I was taught most of this by Conservatives, by unapologetic Republicans, in Christian schools. Life and lived experience filled in the rest of it. So yes, to a great extent a lot of those things have changed, and not for the better. Also, if we're being honest a fair number of the reasons I'm still here are people who right-wing ball-garglers like Candace Owens (much less elitist freaks like Donald Trump) would cheerfully ignore and write off, simply for the Color of their skin or the content of their Character.

Especially that second part, these days.

And having a society requires, at the minimum, that someone act in good faith and believe in something other than bigotry, hierarchy and selfishness with a large side-dish of pettiness, if not necessarily that they have good character themselves.

Without truth, there is no freedom.

You either believe in freedom, or you don't.

And this really isn't that hard.

And in a world where there's video evidence that a Black pilot both prevented an E-2C Hawkeye from crashing into the ocean, and did so impressively enough to be Decorated for it...or that it was just in the news that a female pilot prevented what could have been a major air crash a couple weeks ago...this kind of crap is inexcusable. The Tuskegee Airmen never lost an escorted bomber to enemy air action during *Checks Notes* World War II, And for fuck's sake, we knew women had the chops to be fighter pilots 30 years ago.

I don't give a damn that some White people are racists or sexists and have always felt this way. I've always felt that people like that needed they ass beat. I don't give a damn that Candace Owens has no self-respect and is willing to cater to that shit. Those kind of White people aren't quite the dominant force they once were, amping up the ones that are left all the way to eleven isn't going to create an automatic electoral win for Republicans.

And frankly, if these fucking people were so sure of themselves and really thinking they were going to win under normal American conditions, I don't think they'd be threatening to start a civil war every other goddamn day.

It's the 21st goddamned century, y'all can shut the fuck up. It's time to get the fuck over it.

Neither America, nor any other country in the world, is going to make it just on the strength of its White Right-Wing Men. We're either all human beings, or we ain't, and not a one of us is ever going to be.

It's really that simple.

We're either all free, or none of us are...and if we're not?

Then, Just because you think the spider talks real good or the web is comfy-cozy, doesn't mean the spider isn't going to eat you.

It's called self-preservation.

That spell it out for ya??

Слава Україна!

Blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. That is the American way. ~Ronald Reagan

Six

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride."

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press