Downward Spiral (Scenes From The Culture Wars II.)

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I worked for all my life
And I had to start again
With just my children and my wife
I'd thank my lucky stars
To be livin' here today
'Cause the flag still stands for freedom
And they can't take that away

And I'm proud to be an American
Where at least I know I'm free
And I won't forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me
And I'd gladly stand up
Next to you and defend her still today
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land
God bless the USA. 

~God Bless The USA, Lee Greenwood.

I saw this earlier today.

So, Republicans want us to not have Federal law enforcement, the information we need to defend our country, or the ability to fight diseases?

Sounds about on-brand these days, if you ask me.

I mean, God Damn Bless America, these fucking assholes are doing about everything but using the flag for toilet paper. Personally, I'm getting a little bit tired of this bullshit.

You know what's one thing that's a constant between the all those government agencies, the Federal government as a whole, and the military? People do their jobs regardless of who's in office, because America is the job, not George W. Bush, not Barack Obama, not Donald Fucking Trump. People swear an oath to the Constitution, not the President, and there's a reason for all that.

And if the CIA, FBI and NSA find stuff that is a threat to the country but inconvenient to one party or the other? Too bad, that's the fucking job. If the CDC says hey, this virus is a real threat even when the President is trying to ignore that shit or wish it away...that's too bad. Facts are facts, reality is what it is. It's not going to be intimidated by bluster and insults and the longer you keep trying to ignore it, the worse shit will get.

It's kinda that simple. People who want you to be sick and not know what's going on? They don't give a fuck about you. Hell, they don't really give a fuck about themselves, as stupid as that sounds.

And they don't give a fuck about America either. 

In point of fact, America is inconvenient, at least in its current form.

You know, I keep hearing these people bitch about the fact that nobody wants to work minimum wage jobs anymore (No word on the fact that corporations don't really want to hire the workers to fill them either.) 

But logic dictates that if you want people who are willing to do shitty jobs for shitty pay, if nobody in the current workforce makeup wants to do that, you bring in new people, increase benefits and raise wages. Corps seem to think they can wait out the public's disgust or make people desperate enough to want to do damn near anything for $7.25 an hour. Or they're waiting for Republicans to be back in power to try and force people to work for that. It's not going to work, it's just not. And it's not really about profits either, these motherfuckers just miss having slaves, basically.

But this is America and that shit is wrong.

That said, if that's what you want...there are some people who will put up with that shit, at least to get started. People coming here from Central America where $7.25 is a lot of damn money, for one.

According to logic, who gives a damn if the person has brown skin? A brown-skinned person can flip burgers at Burger King or wash dishes at IHOP for $8 or $10 an hour just as good as a white one, right? Most likely, more often, better and with less complaining in my experience. It's as simple as that.

And if such people really want to come here to make a better life for themselves they'll do it. "A wall and some tanks" isn't going to do much but get griddle-hot in the desert sun and waste a whole bunch of money. A tank is designed to fight other armored vehicles, not to keep unarmed but very resourceful people from crossing a border. Tanks aren't very good for things like crowd control or counterinsurgency or defense of an empty, non-militarized border and we already know Trump's stupid wall didn't work.

As an example here, say we try this and an M1A1 Abrams breaks down in the middle of the fucking desert and they have to whistle up an armored recovery vehicle to come get the thing, how much is that going to add to the tab for soothing white bitch's ego?

And that's aside from the fact that we're a nation of immigrants, I myself am a descendant of immigrants and it doesn't seem right to deny other people that same chance.

Make Wendy pay the bill to tow a goddamn Abrams back to the laager from out in the middle of the desert, and I bet she won't be so keen on the idea, let's put it that way. That type of shit gets expensive.

More to the point, Wendy knows this as well as I do. And she knows if she'd said this kind of racist shit as an Air Force officer she'd have been shit-canned for it. There would not have been no debate, I saw shit like that happen to people. Hell, back in my day we reported a sergeant for sexual harassment because of his constant inappropriate jokes and negative comments about gay people. People get tired of hearing that shit, it's not funny. Homophobia, racism, it's all the same shit: Hate.

And people wonder why I don't like the stupid "Let's Go Brandon" jokes, but I digress.

Hate should have no place in 21st century America. Instead it threatens to tear this country apart.

The fact that this dumb-as-fuck bitch was an officer...a pilot, in fact...does not give me a good feeling.  Communism hasn't been a thing since 1989, Lady. Yeah, I might've just been some dumb kid in Security Forces, but fuck, I can read a calendar or a history book. Why can't you?

More to the goddamned point if anybody is demonstrably acting like Communists...more often than not, it's the fucking Republicans. They certainly love themselves some Vladimir Putin and conducting KGB-like activities against their own people now, don't they?

Maybe, just maybe, "The border" would be more effectively policed if Customs and Border Protection was doing its motherfucking job instead of spying on American reporters? Just a thought.

Of course, given their choice, Republicans like Wendy Rogers would turn everyone into an informant, a spy, an agent of their shitty political philosophy who got nothing out of it but extra rations of potatoes and vodka and no, they don't see the hypocrisy. Their first thought is "It's not communist when we do it!" 

Yes it fucking is, you're just a dumbass.

I don't want to live in that kind of country, and neither do you. Not if you have a brain in your head.

But here's the thing, a fucking ignorant prat like Lauren Boebert...and thus too many of the GOP base from which she came, doesn't have the brain in her head to realize where this shit is going.

I'm sure she thinks that America being split into two pieces, one fighting to maintain what we are, imperfect, but still working for the common good and the other embracing fascism and hate, will give meaning to her life and that she'll keep her little bit of power and this, that, and the other thing.

Lady, have you seen that the attitude of Republican men towards women in general has gotten much worse in just the last few years? If these people get what they want...the absolute last thing you're going to get to do is keep your current job and all the cheap internet fame you've racked up so far.

But as long as somebody else gets treated worse and she doesn't have to go back to working at MacDonald's, Blowbert would likely be fine with that.

Thing is, I've been some places and I've seen some shit, and there's a lot worse things that can happen out there. Nobody with a brain in their head really wants any kind of civil war or insurgent conflict in America, just trust me on this one.

The simple truth here is that Republicans hate America...because America is changing, has changed enough that women are some of the most stereotypical obnoxious Republicans, and most of us are Okay with that. I'm sure plenty of these people hate that Allen West had to be considered a perfectly good candidate to head the Texas GOP. They hate that America is getting so its problems require people who act like grown-ass adults to deal with them. They hate that they can't just bullshit...or meme...their way out of the many different issues facing this country today. 

They crave subjection to a "Strongman" like Vladimir Putin not because of some hierarchal conservatism or ideology or reasoned philosophy but because of the lack of it. There's no there, there. They want Fascism and an American il Duce because they don't want to deal with the hard work of life. They want somebody else to make all their decisions, and the smaller and more remote that little intellectual elite is, the better.

Because it absolves them of responsibility, that's what they want. They want to have nothing better to do but drink alcohol to the point of excess and sleep where they fall, like Soviet factory workers in 1988, perhaps.

Thing is, to these people the greatest expression of their beliefs is to stick their middle finger up at the rest of the world, and they have a deep, craven need to be seen doing so, and to be cheered for it by some roaring mob. These people are not your grandfathers' or your father's Republicans. They are, to be honest, completely incapable of the level of decency or intelligence or reason that conservatives or Republicans could muster in 2004, much less 1984.

Republicans have come a long way since then, a long way down.

And they'll spit on the legacy of Ronald Reagan just like they've shit on and undermined the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. They'd rather live in a house divided against itself than work for the common good. Hell, they'd rather burn all this shit down and start shooting at their neighbors than admit there even is such a thing as the common good.

It's not "Proud to be an American" anymore. Now it's "LOL Nothing matters, where's my money?"

Even though the actions a lot of these people are taking would devalue that same currency.

Or worse it's "Fuck you, America" because they think the trees are greener on the other side of the Bering Strait.

And that's pretty damn sad.

Part I

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