Gravity (Fallen, One.)

In the midst of all this, there was Bernie Madoff. An embezzler named "made off." Hmm. Was the name not a clue? Did he have to be with the accounting firm of Dewey, Fuck-You, and Howe? ~Robin Williams

I saw this earlier.

This fucking guy is the Russian president of Alpha Bank...of Trump Tower server infamy. And he's wondering how he's going to survive. Oh, I don't know motherfucker, you could always get a real job and bootstrap your way up like you rich fuckers always expect everybody else to do?

Or, I don't know, maybe sell some of your shit that's worth millions of dollars?

Get a loan with an absurdly low interest rate and start some new venture in a country that isn't launching an entirely unnecessary, vicious war against a smaller neighboring country and losing?

Fuck around and find out, yo.

That sound you hear is me laughing at your dumb ass.

This is what happens when you could have done something, but didn't. And let me tell you something else...you wonder why a lot of Western media, conservatives in general, the Republicans in particular and at least some of the West's wealthy all the sudden have their noses up Vladimir Putin's ass?

Because a lot of These Fucking People see this fucking guy and suddenly realize they could be next, if they back the wrong horse or do the wrong thing or offend We The People or a government that genuinely represents us...and, spoiler...a hell of a lot of them have done just that. So they want to see if they can recover some of the costs they've (politically) sunk into this bullshit. 

They want to find a way to protect themselves from things like democracy and freedom and public opinion. 

That's the whole basis for a lot of "Conservative" talk these days, especially bitching about things like "Cancel Culture."

Privilege. Completely unearned fucking Privilege.

I'm fucking sorry, but I'm goddamned fucking tired of the utterly ridiculous amount of solicitude in the media and the political class for authoritarian leaders and rich motherfuckers. If dude is worried he won't be "allowed" (WTF?!?!) to have a cleaner or a driver...dude, clean up after yourself and learn how to drive your own fucking car. Ain't nothing in the world for getting shit done like "Do It Your-own-damn-self." And you might even feel like you accomplished something, too.

Oh yeah, that's right, isn't it? This flag was meant only for the rest of us, not for you fuckers. Well, your Army flies the Hammer and Sickle, sooner or later y'all gonna have to own that bitch again.

Y'all just mad 'cause we made it "Sooner." You don't...and shouldn't...get to reap the benefits of Capitalism and liberal democratic global order and Western lifestyles and wealth while flying that goddamned flag. Not least because the whole modern global system that made your asses rich came about because of the fall of Communism.

 Nothing quite supercharged global Capitalism like over a billion Chinese suddenly being able to be (even if on a very limited scale individually as cheap labor) a part of it, plus the sudden availability of resources in former East Bloc countries and Russia itself, and later the entry of China into global finance as a moneyed power in its own right...a set of circumstances that places like Sub-Saharan Africa where the West and Russia haven't really invested in have actually reaped some benefits from.

You fuckers decided you wanted to let Putin party like it's 1979...but trying to erase Ukraine instead of Afghanistan this time? And then you idiots basically got BTFO'd with one punch by the Ukrainians because your army is unmotivated conscripts led by incompetent officers and nobody knows what's going on...and you idiots couldn't even bother to outfit this snowballing soup sandwich properly. 

And then you lost your ass financially? Dude, the fuck else were you expecting was going to happen?

And yet somehow, the most aggravating thing I encountered today was finding out that some high-horse, willfully-pig-ignorant "Conservative" is fucking surprised that rich people are debased motherfuckers awash in drugs, orgiastic fornication and various and sundry evil deeds.

Dude, you don't seriously think some bitter ass old KGB dude like Vladimir Putin is a devout Christian...much less some kind of misplaced American-style Culture Warrior conservative in real life, do you?

Dude has dedicated himself to the destruction of America and to violent Russian ethno-nationalism. If you ain't already Russian, that don't benefit you, especially if you're an American.

A lot of people better learn this shit real fast, 'cause as regards that global order that Reagan and Bush 41 and Bill Clinton built, we're falling and we better figure something out real damn fast.

It's not so much Gravity, as it is that sudden stop at the bottom, that's the killer.

You know, I can at least understand and empathize with president Zelensky's lack of comprehension about the sociopathic Russian lack of care even for the dead...much less the living...because I share it myself. Why? Because the tradition from which I come, the nation that I served, says we're citizen-soldiers who, whether we're alive or dead, get to go home when it's over.

The Russian government put all these soldiers in this situation, and simply cannot be bothered to even pick up their dead or treat them with any respect if they do? 

Fuck all that. 

I can sure understand why so many of the Russian soldiers don't even want to be there. I wouldn't either. Especially if I knew all this was being done in the service of bitter old KGB Men and filthy-rich oligarchs who don't know how to clean up after they own damn selves. And knowing they wouldn't even carry or drag my ass back to friendly lines if I was dead or dying?

Fuck that, too.

I wouldn't want to serve a country where my best chance would be for me to get captured by the enemy or have them pick up my corpse after I died.

And the thing I don't get is...and I say this as somebody who has invested some time and some work into America myself...I sure as hell don't get why so many Americans want America to be like Russia and then they show more solicitude and sympathy to the oligarchs and political leaders who fucking caused this fucking war than they do to the people who are getting bombed and fighting for their freedoms and their very lives.

And then I think about it, and I realize that one hell of a lot of Americans just want to be that fucker who's so rich he doesn't have to clean himself and a hell of a lot of those fucking people somehow see authoritarianism as a goddamned shortcut to that kind of life. 

These fucking privileged people all figure they'll know who to blow or which palms to grease so they prosper and by the time they find out different, it'll be too late for everybody.

Not "Everybody else" as even Mr. Can't-Clean-Himself is finding out, sooner or later this type of shit hits everybody, Period.

And this is what 70-some million of us wanted for America. They thought they'd get to make a killing financially and dominate somebody else forever while having it easy themselves. Lot of motherfuckers thought they was gonna be the Chairman of Gazprom someday. Hell, Some of these fucking people still want it and still think they just billionaires who ain't found they groove yet.

And they're goddamned willing to burn down everybody's freedom to get even the tiniest shot at that kind of life that exists in they own heads. Even if all they get is to live such things vicariously through some dementia-addled, drooling ass moron like Donald Fucking Trump.

Yeah, fuck you too, assholes.

Fuck America being a privileged country. I'm tired of this kind of bullshit. We need to, as a people, deal with some hardship that white folk can't buy their way out of or pawn off on other people.

And we need more Ukrainian refugees and maybe a bunch more of those Russians who have fled from Putin's New Soviet Union, too. I bet a lot of them could show some of these Americans what's up. And while we're at it, "Conservatives" stop bitching about our "Southern Border" and maybe start treating the people trying to cross it with a little respect and pay them a half decent wage to do the menial work you don't want to. I think you'd find they'd agree with you on some stuff if you did that. And bring back the Jamaican seasonal workers and fuck, stop with this trying to run everything with as few people as humanly possible. 

There's a good chance in the next few months or years that we could find ourselves having to spin things up for a wartime economy for some years due to the actions of another country, and that is not a joke. If Putin escalates things further in Ukraine or attacks NATO we ain't going to have a choice but to be in this fight. 

And while we're at it, cut out this bullshit of so many Americans...almost especially the "Conservatives" trying to be malingering so they can just get a check, too. Maybe people with genuine need wouldn't have to be or feel so degraded in our own society if everybody who could do it did their work and paid their fair share...and people understood things like that the beans got to be picked and the floors mopped and the people who do that need respect too. After all, if there's a war, who's most likely the people who are going to have to go and fight? It's going to be the people who do the labor, not the people who wear a suit and go to meetings all day. 

And then somebody's going to have to be there to do that work.

So, we're going to need more people.

Everybody better get this, Including the fucking rich people.

If this situation gets much worse, too much greed and prejudice and useless bullshit are going to be things...luxuries...that we all don't have time for, and that get in the way of doing what needs to be done so we can all be free and survive. 

That's exactly what a lot of These Fucking People are afraid of. That's why they'd rather kiss some dictator's ass than fight for their own freedom. 

Time's coming where if you want a better country, you're going to have to be a better citizen. And if you want to remain free, you just might have to fight for it in some way.

Freedom isn't free, remember?

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free. ~Ronald Reagan.

Слава Україна!

Last Post

Will Turner : You knew my father.

Pintel : Old Bootstrap Bill? Aye, we knew him. Never sat well with old Bootstrap, what we did to Jack Sparrow. That's why he sent a piece of the treasure off to you, as it were. He said that we deserved to be cursed... and remain cursed. A' course, that didn't sit too well with the captain.

Ragetti : No, that didn't sit to well with the captain at all... Tell 'im what Barbossa did.

Pintel : [angry]  I'm telling the story. So, what the captain did is, he strapped a cannon to Bootstrap's bootstraps.

Ragetti : [snickering quietly]  Bootstrap's bootstraps...

Pintel : And the last we saw of old Bill Turner, he was sinkin' into the crushing black oblivion of Davy Jones' Locker. Course, it was only after that we learned we needed his blood to lift the curse.

Ragetti : Now that's what you'd call ironic.

~From Pirates Of The Caribbean.