Slaves Of The Caesars (On Stupidity, Volume One, Part Three.)

There's a reason for this, there's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better. Don't look for it. Be happy with what you've got... because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now... the real owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. That's right. ~George Carlin

I saw this earlier. Marjorie Taylor Greene is positively enraged that she has to go to court on Friday and take the stand to defend herself, and that there will be reporters present. I'm assuming she also has legal counsel, but the video didn't say.

These things...the freedom of the Press, the right to defend oneself in court, the right to trial by jury...are all things people in a lot of other countries would kill to have. Have killed for, in fact, just the same way as Americans had to fight and kill to get them. And Marge is raging that she has to go and do this...

Never once thinking it's her right to face her accusers and be heard.

Never once thinking that the alternatives could be being blown up by a home-made bomb or dragged off and shot by a firing squad...or tortured, forced to confess and then subjected to public spectacle or sham trial before being executed. And she thinks she's being "forced" to defend herself?

The Truth is that Marge is opposed to the very concepts of rights and self-determination. And she thinks it's beneath her to have to appear before anyone other than her adoring fanbase. 

If that functionally means "she has no rights" so be it. I'm sure she figures she'll get out of trouble if she blows the right dude, or something.

She's never lived under any system but this one, and it's abundantly clear she doesn't appreciate that.

This morning I saw that some idiot Republican Congresswoman said that Border Patrol agents had apprehended more than a Billion migrants at our southern border. You'd think that would be news, except of course the article she's referencing only said it was a Million migrants, which I suppose doesn't sound as good or something.

I think I'm beginning to see why These Fucking People don't want Math taught in schools...

Apparently if you can do Math, that makes it harder to make stupid hateful claims, at least without feeling like a dirty, no good liar.

And we all know Republicans don't like to have to feel bad about themselves for any reason whatever. They tell us that themselves!

And it's the same shit as why the Right has suddenly declared war on Disney...if even the dumbest person is watching cartoons and movies that are inclusive and show people who are different from one another interacting and working together and stuff, well that's what they'll think the world is supposed to be like, even if they're stupid. Then it's harder to get them to vote for hate.

It's the same reason These Fucking People don't want to participate in unscripted public debates against their actual opposition, either.

Yeah, I saw the news about that RNC vote, too.

French President Macron apparently handed perennial far-right candidate Marine Le Pen her own ass on a plate when she tried to needle him for hosting Putin...he hit back with it's his job as a head of state...Putin isn't his banker. 

Ouch. Like Rick Wilson said, I think I've seen enough.

And Marine Le Pen does in fact owe Russian banks and oligarchs, and thus Putin, a whole bunch of money...which she's still paying off. Seems to me like she should have thought about what might happen and how that might look before taking out the loan to finance her presidential run in the last election? But what the hell do I know?

If I had to guess, given the climate of things, that's probably the end of it. Macron already had a comfortable lead opening up. Most places, being associated with Putin is bad for you, these days.

I mean, for fuck's sake, even most "Conservatives" are smart enough these days to want to be seen supporting these Ukrainian Army guys.

I read a long and interesting thread by Kamil Galeev today, but this right here was the part that stuck in my head. Apparently, for a very long time in the pre-modern era, Ukrainians elected their Orthodox Priests. And the old Russian empire had less time to grind down that independent nature.

And perhaps more to the point, even in Czarist times, Ukraine had Taras Shevchenko AKA "Kobzar" (Bard) as a national poet while the Russians had the more authoritarian Imperial apologist Aleksandr Pushkin as the developer of their literature somewhat before that.

And Pushkin literally advertised the benefits of Russian rule and Russification as "Sure, you're a slave, but you'll be a better class of slave than all the other slaves."

This is the future that "Conservatives" want.

And in that light I think I'm going to have to revise my previous thought that if America loses, or if These Fucking People succeed in breaking off a piece of America only to get taken over by the Russians and turned into a satellite state...that These Fucking People would object to their kids having to learn Russian in school...or to having Russian culture forced upon themselves. They would not oppose such things, not ethnic cleansing, nor marching foreign soldiers, nor secret police nor Gulags. 

They want that shit!

Modern American "Conservatism" is defined by a hankering for a Caesar, never mind that it would mean the end of America.

Run those lines by them..."When the time comes you'll say arrogantly 'Yes I'm a slave, but a slave to the Caesar of the world!" and these motherfuckers will instantly bend the knee as one in homage to their new Russian god...

Worse, they would make of such a saying a new "Civis Romanus Sum" for our own Dark Times.

And that right there is the difference between the "Conservatives," the fascists, and the rest of us. 

Such a scenario would likely even be enough to make them fully reject Donald Trump...who is at least an American...in favor of Vladimir Putin.

I guess people who don't understand the concept of freedom can't understand why anybody else would want it, either.

That is why Republicans can never again be allowed to regain power in America. We can't trust these miserable sons of bitches with the idea of freedom, on a conceptual level. I don't know how else to even say this.

If you want a better country, you have to be a citizen, not a slave.

And to be a citizen, you have to understand and appreciate your rights...including and perhaps especially the right to resolve disputes in a nonviolent way in a court that carries the force of Law.

Of such things is civilization made.

Слава Україна!

When I am dead, bury me

In my beloved Ukraine,

My tomb upon a grave mound high

Amid the spreading plain,

So that the fields, the boundless steppes,

The Dnieper's plunging shore

My eyes could see, my ears could hear

The mighty river roar.

When from Ukraine the Dnieper bears

Into the deep blue sea

The blood of foes ... then will I leave

These hills and fertile fields --I'll leave them all and fly away

To the abode of God,

And then I'll pray .... 

But until that day I know nothing of God

Oh bury me, then rise ye up

And break your heavy chains

And water with the tyrants' blood

The freedom you have gained.

And in the great new family,

The family of the free,

With softly spoken, kindly word

Remember also me.

~Taras Shevchenko

...

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:27

Part Two