No Hiding Place Down Here.

There's no hidin' place down here
You know, there's no hidin' place down here
I went to the rock to hide my face
But the rock cried out, no, no hiding place down here

I wanna tell you that there's no hiding place down here
Don't you know there's no hiding place down here?
Yeah, I went to the rock to hide my face But the rock cried out, no, no hiding place down here.

~African American Spiritual

I saw this last night.

Apparently, somebody at the White House called somebody at 7th Fleet and asked if the USS John S. McCain could be moved, or its nameplates covered up, or something, so that Trump didn't see it and become upset during his trip to Japan. Apparently, somebody, some Admiral or other, was perfectly fine with this. The ship is under repair and cannot be moved, so they covered up the nameplate and parked a barge in the way and gave the crew the day off.

I have to wonder how that affected fleet morale, while I'm at it.

Now, if I have to explain to you why something like this is wrong, you'll never get it and as far as I'm concerned you've failed as a human being and as an American...and I sure as fuck wasn't no Admiral.

The correct response to what in all respects was an unlawful order (or request, or whatever),\ was "Fuck you, Sir." Not least because the ship is, in fact, named for John McCain's grandfather and father, both Navy admirals. The eponymous late Senator was only added to the ship's naming shortly before his death...as well he had a right to be as far as I'm concerned. And I didn't vote for the guy, often didn't agree with his politics, and in fact I was damned near done with being a Republican by the time he was even nominated. Like him or not, he was a prisoner of war, a war hero, a long-serving Representative and then Senator, and ultimately a presidential candidate for my former party. That deserves a certain amount of official respect, not least of all within the Navy in which he served, and this should transcend petty politics and the volatile moods of the current occupant of the White House in all cases.

Or we aren't the people we say we are.

That goes double for Naval officers who not only know all this, but are heirs to the traditions fundamentally maintained and bequeathed to them by John McCain and his ancestors.

And by military law and tradition the Armed Services are supposed to be apolitical. They aren't always, but they're supposed to be. Our Founding Fathers set things up that way for a reason.

But it's actually worse than that if all that I've heard is true.

Anticipatory obedience to such outlandish, volatile whims is a sign of abuse. Any mental health professional or social worker or operator of a website that deals with the topic can tell you that.

And again, where is this crap coming from?

That part, I'm not so sure about, or at least one likely has to wade through 50 years worth of crap to find it. But I can sure tell you how we got to this mess in the here and now.

Petty hatreds, misogyny, racism, the kind of shit-headed fear of change that causes utter morons to actually create changes far worse than whatever they might fear...and, I believe,  to ultimately destroy their own civilizations and their own power because they in their infinite cowardice and stupidity could not tolerate the idea that a Black person...or whatever...might get some.

The dumb person who posted this gives no thought to the fact that, as the snipped bit below describes...these kids, whatever their color, are being taught Irish culture and language in school.

To people like this lady, culture and nation are about how you look, not what you're taught or where you live or what your character is.

And of course there's not one word about how the actual reason Irish-speakers are a minority in their own country is because the British spent centuries attacking and trying to destroy Irish culture.

Change the variables around a bit, Jews, Gay people, Muslims, etc. and the same bullshit has been used by Orban, Putin, Trump, and of course others as well. These fucking people and their followers are hollowing out their own countries...Hungary's population has shrunk by around 20% as anybody who can get a job anywhere else does so, Russia has an economy far smaller than it should because the oligarchs have stolen so much of their nation's financial capital. The USA is drowning in stupid shit despite the best efforts of a literal majority of the population to save it...and is going to come out of this quite literally a reduced nation, with a reduced status and a reduction in the trust placed in it by the rest of the world no matter what happens...and that was what the basis of our power even was.

Given that our media, and our political system seem determined to let people do what they want rather than taking a stand on anything and facing the risks involved...because literally everybody fears losing their gilded perch in the magical city more than they fear losing their lives or the country that even provides said perch...I quite honestly believe that we're going to come out of this a fractured Republic...though, very likely one with all the titular things on an international level that we had before. You can, if you like, ask the Russians how well that worked out for them for the first couple of decades.

But it can always get worse. The world is full of men who simply do not want our modern world to exist, because they think they might have been more powerful or successful, or richer, or had more success with women 100 or 300 or 1,000 years ago. So, they want to go back in time.

See Also: Real-life slaves in Libya, a country where Moammar Gaddafi, right or wrong, earned tremendous respect throughout Africa by doing stuff in other countries that actually helped people. Nation-building, and on a far smaller budget than the US applied to Afghanistan or Iraq. But this...literal slavery...is the result of his death. And I didn't like Gaddafi one damn bit, either.

For bonus points, you may, if you like, look up the popularization of the term "Infidel" in anti-Muslim terminology. Go ahead, look up the kind of imagery associated with such on websites like Facebook. Fuck Confederate Flags, there's people who want to bring back Taking the Cross and going on Crusade. And I'm a tell you right now, if you think an extremely Westernized country like Israel that is majority-Jewish is safe from those idiots you have another thing coming. If you think countries with large Christian populations, like Egypt or Jordan, or countries that have politically conservative leanings and deep ties to the (Establishment) Republican Party like Qatar or Saudi Arabia or the UAE would be safe from this shit...they won't. These motherfuckers can't even be loyal to the guy that was their fucking political standard-bearer for several years. The fuck makes you think they're going to be loyal to their allies in other countries?

They can't even be loyal to this one.

Trump basically came right out and said that Russia helped him to get elected, at least twice today.

Whether that was what he intended to say or not, that's what he said.

Look, we have to get these motherfuckers out of power, by voting them out or however else we have to. It's that, or we might not get to be free for too much longer. It's really that simple.

We may well come out of this a fractured republic...not least because roughly a third of Americans have decided that they don't want to be free in any real sense of what that word means. All too many conservatives have reached the point where they're apparently fine with being slaves if it means they get to be a better class of slave than all the other slaves. You can't live with that, you can't reason with it, but you can kick the shit out of it, kick it to the curb and make sure the people with that mentality have as little control or territory as possible, and we can protect ourselves and others with force. That's really the only kind of "No" people like that will ever understand. Republicans have basically at this point said that they'd rather be Russians than Americans if they have to share America with LGBT people, non-Christians, People of Color and women.

Remember this guy? Judge Pedo-Bear? This motherfucker is running for Senate again in 2020.

It's not just that he has the same utterly shitty agenda that he always has had...it's that he thinks God told him to have it. Somehow, he seems to think that makes it Okay for him to fondle 14-year-old girls, too. Most likely, that's not all he's done either, he just didn't get caught doing anything else. And perhaps more to the point, Alabama Republicans are Okay with this guy being in their political scene.

You can't reason with that kind of stupidity, you can only defeat it, and if you can't defeat it all the way you have to contain it until you can.

We may lose, but if we don't fight, if we don't stand up against that shit, we lose everything and still have to listen to these insufferable motherfuckers bitch about everything, every goddamned day, because they will never be happy no matter how much others submit.

We have to win, but to win, we have to fight back, consistently, for as long as it takes. Show up, vote, run these motherfuckers out of power and when some of them decide to break off a piece of America for themselves...and they will...we kill that shit with fire just like we did the first time. We have the capability to make Sherman look like a piker simply because we have better technology.

All that sitting on your ass worrying about what's too divisive or too hard or whatever is going to do, fundamentally, is get people killed...or worse.

And if ya'll Republicans think you're safe...just remember that Roy Moore lumps you in with the LGBT folks and Liberals. If anything that invokes the memory of John McCain isn't safe from the moods or wrath of Donald Trump or the machinations of his courtiers in efforts to avoid the same, what makes you think George H.W. Bush, or Ronald Reagan, or Richard Nixon, or hell, Teddy Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln...or you...won't be next?

When you're dealing with a domestic abuser, conflict avoidance, knuckling under, obeying more, abasing yourself even harder...doesn't make you safer, it simply exposes you to more danger as the abuser's lust for power over you deepens.

Remember that, and check this link.

There's no hiding place down here.