Soylent Red

You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it. ~Malcolm X.

There's change in the air.

I can feel it, I think most people can. I think we've finally hit the point that I thought we eventually would all the way back five years or so ago now. Hell, I thought we'd hit that point then.

It's that point where the internal logic of conservatism no longer holds up and the house of cards comes tumbling down.

But of course that doesn't matter to some people.

Republicans, and Trump Supporters (but I repeat myself, for the most part) they know the party's over. They know whatever spell they had over the American body politic broke a good couple of years ago now, and between impeachment and cultural and social change that's continued apace not just in spite of them, but because of them...I mean, seriously, they want to enact all this crazy shit to try to protect their power and white supremacy, but at the same time hold a generalized belief that government should not be a force in people's lives? The Republicans have made themselves and by extension the government ineffectual, deliberately, and embraced the shitty incompetence of Donald Trump as well...and then they wonder why change that they don't want continues anyway?

And then they double down infinitely on Trump, who roughly two thirds of Americans don't like, and wonder why nobody likes them and their polling numbers are in the toilet.

It seems like it should be obvious at this point.

But these people can never seem to manage a simple concept like cause and effect.

Like, fucking seriously, what are people gonna eat after while if somebody kills all the cows and the meat runs out? Conservatives?

I'm imagining that Soylent Red probably tastes like beer and junk food with a side of bad TV and low-quality porn.

So what's their response? THEY ARE COMING TO KILL YOU!!!

There's nothing conservative about that kind of paranoia, and it will get people killed. Probably the wrong people, and for no good reason.

It doesn't matter who "They" are. The idea is to ignite feral tribal loyalty in their (shrinking) base of supporters in the hope that they'll somehow manage greater returns from a diminishing base. It's the same old idea that the purity of "Our" cult/religion/tribe/whatever will triumph because, well, something something Gazpacho, the fuck if I know. I guess I just never thought that way.

And while they're at it, they're lighting everything that they've ever claimed to be, or to believe, or to cherish on fire and leaving it in the middle of the road to burn.

Look at these guys...in Kentucky, no less...where there is about as much of a chance of gun control, realistically, as there would be of getting rid of cows in hippie liberal California where there's basically a taco truck on every corner already.

They look like the Hezbollah and PLO terrorists that were all over the news in the 1980's, right down to the AK-47's and black ski masks. Even their camouflage is Russian.

Except it's imitation Russian Multicam track suits (that's what the three white lines are for) not the real thing, and check out the belt the guy with the three mags across his chest is wearing. If these people are wannabe terrorists, well, they already suck at it. Put these people up against real troops, determined insurgents...or just normal people who return fire and they will piss themselves, drop their weapons and run away.

As their response to the Impeachment of Donald Trump demonstrates, the top two leading characteristics of today's Republican Party are cowardice and hypocrisy.

Yet again, conservative Christians have been losing their shit about the Super Bowl halftime show. Too much dancing and skin and celebration of other cultures or something.

I caught it when my roommate was watching the replay earlier today and I thought it was fucking great. So did most people that I know. By and large, the positive responses are from people, whether they be dancers or musicians or people of color or sports fans or any combination of the above...are from people who just want to live their lives and get the same kind of decent treatment from people that anybody should expect. I don't think any of that is too much to ask.

The negative responses? More so than in previous cases of this kind of bullshit, they seem to come from people who'd be perfectly fine with the whole show if it'd been all white girls and J-Lo had unfurled an American flag. More so than usual all the "but there are kids watching" and "family friendly" rhetoric seems fake as hell, forced and insincere. At this point in my life, I'm forced to conclude that it always was.

If you equate cultural and social change and political realignment with your own death, maybe, just maybe, the problem is you.

It doesn't matter who you are, the world does not have to stop changing just because you say so. What instead will happen is that the world will just pass you by.

As for me? I'm all in to get these assholes out of power and start fixing things, and if you aren't, fuck you. If I have to choose between Latinas dancing, and people who seem to religiously believe in no dancing, I'm a go with the Latinas and the rest of you can pike off.

I've dealt with religious nuts and I'm not interested in letting them tell me how to live my life.

No one but a few rich people currently benefits from 'things as they are' and even conservatives have stopped pretending to subscribe to that notion.

It's time we stop talking and start doing something about this mess.

And that's all there is to say about that.