Everlasting Contempt (American Revelation III, Part Four.)

Oh you set your course for the furthest shores
And you never once looked back
And the flag you flew was a pirate cross
On a field of velvet black
And those landsmen who you but lately knew
Were left stranded on the lea
Don't call on them when the storm clouds rise
On the dark and the rolling sea

Oh I have no need of a chart or creed
You told your waiting crew
For the winds of chance, they will bear us straight
And you spoke as though you knew
So you paid no mind to the warning signs
As you gave your words so free
Don't change your tack when the timbers crack
On the dark and the rolling sea

Now the thunder rails in the great mainsails
And the stars desert the skies
And the rigging strains as the hands of rain
Reach down to wash your eyes
And your oarsmen stands with his knife in hand
And his eyes spell mutiny
Don't call my name when your ship goes down
On the dark and the rolling sea. 
~Al Stewart, On the dark and rolling sea.

Today, Thomas Modly, acting Secretary Of The Navy, called Captain Crozier "Stupid" and "Naive" in a speech to the crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The crew, I should add, that many members of might not be alive right now if it wasn't for Captain Crozier, the crew that knows it, and sent him off with a thunderous farewell the other day. He was answered by angry shouts of "What the fuck!?" from sailors in the crowd.

I just saw that he apologized and walked that shit back. Too late, motherfucker. It's like my Grandpa Thompson (himself a retired reserve Naval Aviator) once told me; "Think about what you say before you open your yap, because once it comes out you said it and you can't take that shit back."

I firmly believe and will maintain until I die that this motherfucker needs to be fired, from a cannon, without a helmet on or a parachute to land safely. We'll start a pool on how big of a splat he makes when he lands.

Fuck this motherfucker.

It's like I've been saying for years, like I learned the same way Modly should have. Respect is earned, by every action, every day. Integrity Above All, Service Before Self, Excellence In All That We Do. Come on, is that really so hard?

Apparently, for some people, yes it fucking is.

Yes, you can certainly make the argument that there have always been assholes like that, I've known a few, certainly anybody who ever heard people like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney or John Ashcroft talk knows what I'm talking about when I say that a lot of Republicans have nothing but everlasting contempt for the institutions they're supposed to be running or the jobs they were appointed or elected to do.

The problem is, that before, they've always had leaders, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, the Bushes...who could at least get these fuckers to do their jobs. Or at least get them to do something without obviously and blatantly shitting all over the troops right in front of the whole damn world and being surprised as fuck when public opinion blows up in their face like an oil tanker hit by an Iraqi Exocet missile.

I'm not quite sure if these people's contempt for everything is a preexisting condition or simply a reflection of their boss's attitude, but certainly unlike Reagan or either Bush, Trump doesn't have the leadership capability to contain that shit and can't get people to rise above it, not even for a second. In fact he seems to revel in creating ever more contentious hatred and division.

And then Trump has the nerve to wonder why most people hate him.

Except, that is, for people who share this everlasting contempt for our people, our society and its institutions, and of course I'm talking about not just a lot of "Conservatives" but also the religious nuts. Here, for example, is Kenneth Copeland both demanding that people keep giving churches money, in spite of the fact that massive numbers of people are laid off or newly unemployed and simply don't have it to give.

In the words of the Terminator "Fuck you, asshole."

And then, to make matters worse, this son of a bitch turns around and refers to Trump as a "King."

In the country that fought a war to make sure it wasn't ruled by a king, and then fought another one to make sure it stayed that way...a country that the entire purpose of it was to be against kings and nobles and unaccountable rulers and that took the step...very unusual for the time///of limiting the power of clerics and priests over the machinations of the State.

And there was a time when somebody like him would've got tarred and feathered and maybe his church burned down for saying this type of shit. Americans fought some small wars even among themselves over things like constitutional rights. The Mormons ended up driven out of Illinois in no small part because of Joseph Smith's violations of freedom of the press in the town he controlled, and this set in motion the chain of events that led to his death and the exile of the Mormons to what eventually became Utah.

Americans don't like kings and they don't, historically, like being told what to do by wannabe tin pot dictators...or, historically, even by their own government. As I've said before, if you're the President you're damned lucky if more than half the population doesn't hate you, right out the gate.

And these motherfuckers know that. Oh yes, they do.

And I think they know they're not going to get reelected, unless America is not a cohesive enough nation to have national elections by November. As I've said that's a big worry that I have, made worse by this virus crap and the Federal government's shambolic response to it, that the Federal government could simply lose all credibility and the country could damn well fall apart by November.

Not with a bang, let alone a bunch of them, but with an empty treasury, a loss of cohesion and a simple lowering of flags on Christmas day, not unlike what happened to the Soviet Union.

I remember that #CalExit was a thing for like five minutes in late 2016. I woke up this morning to find a mix of random Iranians and Russian bots, as well as (presumably) the odd actual American conservative making the hashtag trend on Twitter.

You know, maybe it's just me but I don't think it bodes well for our national unity that even a small minority of idiots equates simply having a different opinion with foreign countries and state sponsors of terrorism.

And frankly that level of fanaticism and/or mental illness does not bode well for anybody who has to live with the people who have it. I mean, I get that some people thrive on petty resentments, but I just cannot imagine having that much hate in one's heart for one's own fellow countrymen and neighbors. I can't imagine where these fucking people get the energy to sustain this shit day after day, year after year, either. I couldn't do it.

I'm just bone-tired sick of these fucking people and this constant stupid shit.

I once thought such ideas far-fetched, but I no longer do, because if we've learned anything in the last few weeks it's that Republicans basically want even their own voters to die. I'm honestly not sure if they've thought far enough ahead to consider what mass death among the aged and among poor whites who don't have health care might do to their reelection prospects.

But of course they're not thinking about that at all, nor are they thinking about how insulting the military right in the face of the troops nor pissing off a majority of the public tends to work out in less-democratic systems than ours...which is what Republicans seem to think they want.

Hint: Civil wars, coups and revolutions, not to mention nation-states flying apart because the people can't get along all work out real bad for everybody, but usually worst of all for those in power at the time. Of course, all these fucking idiots are thinking about is that Mikhail Gorbachev still got to have an office and wear a suit and go to meetings all day for a living.

I'm pretty sure they think that's what'll happen to them, too. The difference is that Mikhail Sergeyevich gave up power voluntarily and really made an effort not to make more enemies than he needed to while he was in power.

Somehow, these arrogant jackasses collectively don't have that level of self-preservation. They seem to think that because around 30% of the country claps and cheers at every dumb thing that they do and because they are rich, that nothing bad will happen to them.

I read today that 40% of Trump Supporters don't like Trump's handling of the COVID-19 crisis.

It seems to me like they've finally started chipping away at that floor level of their support, if they don't kill it off first, and months earlier than Bush did in his last year in office. His polling wasn't really in the toilet until the 2008 economic crisis hit in September. And today, Trump lashed out at a Fox News reporter, simply because she asked what should be a routine question.

These people are going to fall. They've made too many enemies and done too much stupid shit not to. The only question at this point is, are they going to take the United States of American down with them?

Politicians and the military aren't going to save us from that. The institutions of this country will subdivide largely based on where the people who compose them live, and on who can afford to run this, that or the other thing or simply to pay the professionals in question.

Pro Tip: If it goes down that way, don't expect Red States are going to end up in control of all that much power, or that their governments would be anything more than petty satraps in thrall to corporations and the wealthy. In other words, you think things suck now? They can always get worse. Just ask somebody from Afghanistan, or Bosnia. And don't expect that large, diverse Red States like Florida and Texas would not themselves be riven apart by conflict. You think Trump doesn't have much moral authority? Culturally, the average Southern governor has less, and the only reason this crap is tolerated is racism because those people are usually white.

And for you chest-thumping military-worship types? If you think the BUFFS at Barksdale and Minot, or the Bones at Dyess and Ellsworth...let alone real expensive-to-maintain shit like B-2's, F-22's and F-35's will do anything other than sit there and bleach in the sun while birds nest in engine cowlings and landing gear and components succumb to dry rot, you have another thing coming. ICBM's? Half the shit in that leg of the strategic triad doesn't work now. Also, most of the big Navy bases are in Blue states that will be better positioned to actually pay for shit. There's a reason Russia's main power in the world is information warfare. When their shit came crashing down they didn't have much else left...and they still don't have the money to rebuild the Red Army.

Civilization is hard, all aspects of civilization are hard, and electing leaders who have nothing but an everlasting contempt for all aspects of civilization because they in their hubris think that they could do better without it is hard on civilization.

If this goes the way they seem to want, lots of these rich fuckers who wormed their way into power by virtue of being campaign donors would end up as catamites lashed to the back of a truck in the service of some petty warlord who turned out to be worse than their most inflated visions of their own toughness. The only thing that holds them up, that gives them their power, or even keeps them alive, is the very civilization they abhor. I mean, without it, what the hell good is their money?

Listen, nobody's going to save us from this shit. We have to stand up and save ourselves and vote the bastards out.

If you want a better country, you have to be better citizens.

Proverbs 16:18 King James Version (KJV)

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

Part Three.
Part Five.