Mississippi, Goddamn (Great Men, Five.)

 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

...

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude. I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God. 

~Malcolm X, Letter following the Hajj.

It's Veteran's day.

Scott Colom won in Mississippi.

The (Latest) Ole Miss racist idiot quit school, after issuing a non-apology "Apology." But at least she's gone.

The shit will continue until Racism is not only criminalized but treated as heresy and Sin, which it should be; You think you know better than God who is a person deserving of equality and respect? Fuck you, bitch. I hope you enjoy working at McDonald's. May you be the only White person on the crew, bitch, and I say that as a white dude. 

And honestly, this was on track to be the third year in a row that I, as a veteran, didn't feel much like celebrating anything but then those things happened. I ended up crashing out for most of the day 'cause I was still exhausted from work but I did get a lot of World of Warcraft in today so I can't complain.

Overall it wasn't a bad day.

In fact, I'm thinking "Mississippi, goddamn" but for a whole other reason.

A lot of small wins are adding up.

I don't preach a social Gospel I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread. ~Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Maybe, hopefully, enough that we can start to reverse some of the ongoing national idiocy in January.

I mean, somebody apparently is gonna have to go around with a shotgun and make sure all the old-guard elected Democrats show the fuck up. But at least if we push them hard enough I think most of them will.

And when I say "Ongoing national idiocy" I mean stuff like vaccination rates for kids falling.

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

There is NO excuse for this. 

None. Zero.

Not only does education need to be massively revamped, but there needs to be criminal penalties for Antivax woo woo...and if you ask me, for lying in general. The Right is trying to kill people with this garbage and they don't much care if it's mostly their own future voters who die, apparently.

At the level of elected and appointed officials and "elites" the Republican Party certainly is a death cult.

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

I wonder if Republicans get that bad policy and self-destructive stupidity is killing their own people, who they actually need if they ever think they're gonna do anything?

But more to the point, and I think more necessarily; We The People need to stop socially tolerating stupid and motherfucking Tar-and-Feather any asshole that glorifies stupidity or calls basic intelligence "elitism" or "liberal."

I mean among other things it's hard to practice any political philosophy when you're dead. 

I am the way into the city of woe.

I am the way to a forsaken people.
I am the way into eternal sorrow.
Sacred justice moved my architect.
I was raised here by divine omnipotence, primordial love and ultimate intellect
Only those elements time cannot wear are beyond me,
and beyond time I stand.
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.'
~Sign above the gates of hell (variant translation) Canto III, Dante's Inferno, the Divine Comedy.

I mean, I get it, bad people and stupid people vote Republican. Therefore Republicans encourage this shit. It ain't the same Republican Party as it was in the 1980's/early 1990's with Reagan and Bush 41 or even in the Aughts with Bush 43, nor what McCain or Romney would have done.

Yes, yes, I remember the arguments K and I had about whether or not Sarah Palin would have been a good VP. Good times, compared to now.

And again, even a lot of Tea Party idiots (and for that matter, half of MAGA) weren't willing to go as far as Trump has pushed things.

Of course, then These Fucking People doubled down and picked Jim Jordan as House Minority Leader.

The guy who was so bad that John Boehner of all people referred to him as a "Legislative Terrorist."

There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. Who knows? If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix — a clean well lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except those who know in their hearts what is missing... And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Generation Of Swine.

And remember that Boner (and Paul Ryan) quit because the House Republicans were getting too crazy to manage.

Again, maybe Republicans are the fucking problem?? Note: I say this as a former Republican!

Look, there is no excuse for the degree to which national Democrats have *Not* shown up, either in terms of not supporting candidates like Angie Nixon in Florida or Scott Colom in Mississippi (Or, for that matter, their half-assed support for Abdul Al-Sayed here in Michigan) or in terms of their just plain not showing up to VOTE for important shit or not standing up for stated policy goals this week.

When I say that White, secular "liberalism" has not met the moment, that is exactly what I mean. These fucking people are more afraid of not getting invited to parties by the Epstein class than that they will be *Checks Notes Again* killed and eaten by the same.

I'm guessing Scott won't be like that, tho.

Shit like this is why we need term limits, votes of No Confidence and strict-as-hell non-partisan oversight of elected officials. Like seriously, assign these guys a point system like they have at my old job. Call it one point for not showing up for work without a valid reason, two for missing a vote. Rack up twelve points and you're automatically fired, instant special election to replace you.

No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

And then throw in that about every weird narcissist imaginable is running for President...as a Republican, specifically. I'm beyond tired of this shit.

You wanted to get elected. You took this job. You bought the ticket, now take the ride. Why Liz Warren is one of the few people that seems to get what needs to be done I don't know.

For way the fuck too many people, a political career has become nothing more than an audition for a podcast or some kind of media talking-headship, or a permanent grift in or out of office.

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

I mean, fuck, I saw Rick Santorum on CNN the other day. What the fuck are we even doing here??

The thing is, these damn Republicans will pretty much make shit up to be afraid of, in order to justify their jackbooted fantasies.

I mean, among other things they're the ones constantly breaking Grindr and being caught in bed with the Russians or the Saudis. I mean, I get it, the prejudiced idiot base and the Republican political class are violently not the same thing; The problem is that the idiot base willfully tolerates people who shit all over them and even what they allegedly stand for.

And they're all allegedly afraid gay people and Leftists are gonna put them in reeducation camps? (With Trump yet to be impeached and removed? How??)

Also, How the hell do you re-educate somebody that willfully managed to avoid being educated in the first damn place??

These people can't stop contradicting themselves.

Hell, I'm pretty well convinced that they don't want to.

Even these fucking people's fear is dishonest, beyond a deep general conviction that everybody is secretly just as evil and self-serving and generally the same as they are.

Seems like a hell of way to live, and yes I get that for some people this justifies how they are in their minds. But, I couldn't do it. Somebody has to believe in something, and cynicism doesn't qualify. Otherwise, what's the damn point??

"Fuck You, I've got mine" or "I'm White" isn't an answer either.

And these are the Republican idea of "Great Men?"

Hard Pass.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American. Today, we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation's promise through civility, courage, compassion, and character. America, at its best, matches a commitment to principle with a concern for civility. A civil society demands from each of us good will and respect, fair dealing and forgiveness. Some seem to believe that our politics can afford to be petty because, in a time of peace, the stakes of our debates appear small. ~George W. Bush

Four

Remember when your High School History teacher said "The course of human events changes because of the deeds of great men"?. Well the bitch was lying. Fuck Julius Caesar, fuck Abe Lincoln, fuck Mahatma Gandhi. The world keeps moving because of you and me: the anonymous. Revolutions get started because people don't have enough bread. Wars start over a game of checkers. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO Series "Oz" S1, E8 "A Game Of Checkers."