Crossing The Rubicon (Last Christmas In Trump Land, Part One.)

Today, in Afghanistan, a girl will be born. Her mother will hold her and feed her, comfort her and care for her — just as any mother would anywhere in the world. In these most basic acts of human nature, humanity knows no divisions. But to be born a girl in today's Afghanistan is to begin life centuries away from the prosperity that one small part of humanity has achieved. It is to live under conditions that many of us in this hall would consider inhuman.
I speak of a girl in Afghanistan, but I might equally well have mentioned a baby boy or girl in Sierra Leone. No one today is unaware of this divide between the world’s rich and poor. No one today can claim ignorance of the cost that this divide imposes on the poor and dispossessed who are no less deserving of human dignity, fundamental freedoms, security, food and education than any of us. The cost, however, is not borne by them alone. Ultimately, it is borne by all of us — North and South, rich and poor, men and women of all races and religions.
Today's real borders are not between nations, but between powerful and powerless, free and fettered, privileged and humiliated. Today, no walls can separate humanitarian or human rights crises in one part of the world from national security crises in another. 

~Kofi Annan, Nobel Prize acceptance speech, 2001.

As I understand it "Crossing The Rubicon" has become a hashtag and a coda for the fact that Trump Supporters seem to think Trump should find a way to overturn the election, overthrow our Democracy and install himself as dictator or king or something.

Here's the thing, how did crossing the Rubicon ultimately work out for Julius Caesar? 

Sure, he seized power, but he was assassinated by the Senate and plunged Rome into one of the more legendary of history's civil wars. and both events have always been so, both were after all the subject of plays by Shakespeare.

To be clear, there is no longer any Constitutional or legal or moral means for Trump to remain in power, neither Congress as a whole, nor the government, nor the military, nor even his own party as a whole backs Trump's desire to remain in power. It's only Trump's cult and his assorted appointed lackeys and certain boot-lickers in Congress that actually support him in this matter, and even enough of those people recognized that our system is more important than the man. 

We The People have moved on, enough of us to matter anyway, and the cultists are pissed.

Meanwhile, the typical shitty Republican attitudes are rising back to the fore, Mitch McConnell for example wants the stimulus amount in the COVID-19 relief package to be a lousy $600. That's fine for somebody like me, and I'll take it, but I know people who are basically drowning in bills, who are absolutely suffering on all sorts of levels right now because they're the only ones in their families who still even have jobs, due to the pandemic. Some of them even have relatives who are raging Trump Supporters who are mad as hell that he lost while they wait on their next welfare check, and no, I'm not even joking. 

That stimulus amount needs to be more to the tune of a couple grand per family or household if not per adult person with add-ons for any children present, for the duration of this thing, at least until we can get the economy back on its feet and the virus under control. 

And that, my friends, means taxing the wealthy on a basis that's commensurate with their overall wealth.

Note I say this as a former conservative who knows exactly what that means. 

Yes, I know we're dealing with people who are so stupid they're entirely fine with torpedoing national defense because people on Twitter were mean to the President. You can't sue somebody for something somebody else did, this is not just a basic American ideal, it was a part of pre-Trump conservative thought. 

Hell, the fucking internet itself has been a dream for these fucking people and they're mad because it doesn't serve them exclusively? Fuck these fucking fuckers and I don't care if they get mad that I said that.

Our society has goddamned near broken itself in the name of giving rich people more money. If America goes the way of the Soviet Union, which I'm sorry to say looks likely eventually if not right now, it will ultimately be because of this one stupid fact. As excessive as our military spending is, it's nothing compared to the revenue we don't collect as a nation because we don't tax the rich on a fair basis. And that shit is still not enough for these fucking people?!?!

I'm not saying pitchforks and torches, guillotines and Molotov cocktails, or even 25mm Cannon shells and Hellfire missiles are the fucking answer. What I'm saying is, if there's some kind of revolution or some shit, as beat up as I am I can still teach somebody to use a rifle or something. As old as I am and as long ago as it was that I learned it I can still explain to somebody how actual Christians are really supposed to treat the poor, and I almost certainly know more about the history of this stuff and why what passes for Republican policy for the last 40 years has been a bad fucking idea.

And not only do Republicans want to make that shit worse, they want to use this virus to kill people, which would erode our tax base even more, and then they've gotten a large, very loud and very stupid minority non-wealthy of Americans to sign on to a political suicide pact where they're the only ones who are going to die.

A hell of a lot of Republican voters aren't agreeing with Marie Antionette's "Let them eat cake" attitude, they're screaming "Let us eat boot leather and virus particles" because they think it makes them better than liberals, or maintains the power of the rich or supports white supremacy, or some stupid shit.

Some people think the Trump administration's basic policy of using COVID-19 to "Cull the weak from the herd" is a good idea, without realizing that since they don't have billions of dollars, they're the weak in this equation.

And worse, a lot of these goddamned people are too goddamned stupid to even realize that's what it's about.

In point of fact it's even worse than that. I can't say this enough. With a political party full of ass kissers and enablers who manages to appoint both-siderists, enablers, fanatics and/or lazy good-for-nothings to almost every relevant post in our government there's a substantial faction of These Fucking Poeple who think that (for example) Mark Meadows or Mike Pompeo hasn't been shitty enough.

There is a decent percentage of so-called "Conservatives" who will not be happy until they see televised executions of their mostly-imagined enemies and news broadcasts of Americans shooting at each other in the streets while large parts of our population face death by disease or starvation and the word 'freedom' used for its intended definition is a dirty word. 

Why? Because that's what These Fucking People think the ideal human condition is, conflict, death and slavery. In the end, These Fucking People will be mad that Trump did not hurt or kill enough people for them.

The cruelty is the fucking point to them. It's really that simple. 

As we count down these last few days before Christmas, millions of people who believe more in Donald Trump than they ever did in Jesus Christ will pledge their undying fealty and love of a brown Middle Eastern Prophet was born in poor circumstances to a conquered people, who would grow to preach compassion, mercy and resistance to the ways of the World.

And for that, He was betrayed and crucified.

It is perhaps the ultimate travesty that Man has taken the words of that holy prophet and that Man by his conduct continued that betrayal and death down through the centuries by people for whom religiosity was more important than spirituality and for whom power mattered far more than the Truth. I believe not only that Man will ultimately pay for that, but that we're paying for it right now, because all God has to do is let us face the consequences of our own actions.

What's even worse is that These Fucking People will, at the end of the day, rationalize away even their own claimed politics and theology in pursuit of what they want right now.

There was a time I thought Republicans stood for something.

I was wrong.

We, as a people, need to get these fuckers out of power and keep them that way if we want to be alive for next Christmas.

It doesn't get much simpler than that. I don't know what more I can do or say to tell you that you need to care about other people, not just for their good, but for your own.

Republicanism is a cult of death and earthly wealth, and it's been allowed too long to claim the faith of Jesus Christ that preaches compassion and eternal life through compassion.

This needs to stop, and it needs to stop right now.

Matthew 2 (King James Version)

1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.

5 And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,

6 And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.

7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.

8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.

9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.

12 And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.

13 And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

14 When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:

Listen, people, it's your call which vision of the human condition you want to embrace. One of these things is not like the other. The ways of Jesus and the various other Prophets and Spiritual figures around the world, and the ways of the World and people like Donald Trump are not compatible. One of these things is not like the other one. You cannot claim both. Even for the non-believer (in anything) one cannot follow both compassion and greed, between love and hate.

Light hath no fellowship with darkness, even, perhaps especially in this time.

Make your choice. Cross the real Rubicon.

But know that you are the one who has to live with the consequences of it, eternally.