The Great Debasement

As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers. ~Ronald Reagan

Yesterday, some racist nut in Buffalo, NY shot up a grocery store in a predominately Black neighborhood and killed ten people. He cited Brandon Tarrant, the Christchurch mosque shooter, and Tucker Carlson in his manifesto, which talked about the right-wing "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory.

And it's horse shit. Nobody's trying to "Replace" white people...who are still something like, what, 60% of the US population?

How would the logistics of this even work out, and what's the point? There are...or their used to be...a lot of non-white Republican voters (Cubans, for example) and I find it pretty rich that somebody like Tucker Carlson would rant about Democrats wanting to "import" more "obedient" voters, given that Republican voters seem to obey any old damn stupid thing, so long as the right Republican says it. I can remember when there was plenty of argument and intellectual diversity on the Right. But those days are deader than John McCain.

Now, the only "debate" is what corporate-created, Republican-manufactured (or simply imagined)supply crisis to blame Democrats for and whether or not it's Okay to starve babies.

I can remember when Elise Stefanik not only wasn't like this, but almost came off as an old-school bipartisan type Republican that I could understand. And then I found out she'd been pushing "Great Replacement" bullshit in campaign mailers for years.

Fuck all that. What is it about the modern Republican Party that makes people debase themselves so? Like Pastor Mark Burns...who is Black...claiming the other day that the most oppressed group was White Men? Or Elise Stefanik going from moderate Republican and Trump critic to racist agitporn shit-poster and saying it's Okay to starve migrant babies because there's some kind of a shortage of baby formula?

What makes people debase themselves like this? Why is the Confederate Flag, or the Hammer And Sickle, or the Swastika seemingly always an Okay symbol for these bastards, but the Stars and Stripes is only worth a damn when *They're* in power?

Then these fuckers have the nerve to call other Americans "Communists?" First off, Communism hasn't been a thing since 1989. Second, you know who else starved people to death as a weapon of ethnic cleansing...and not only wanted but actively maintained border walls and other such fortifications to keep people in as well as keep people out? Communists, that's who. 

I've been saying for a long time that Republicans are basically Communists now, just without anything that helps the common person, so, basically they're about like Putin's New Soviet Union. Except it's a critical difference that they're getting their ass kicked by the Ukrainians.

But just like the Russians, the Republicans have essentially decided that other people don't have the right to exist. Their ideal future is basically the Killing Fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, but with a mall.

And Fox News is effectively turning into Radio Rwanda, but for White People.

Just like with the Russians, words don't mean anything except for how they can be twisted to support the agenda of Leader or State as it is right now...and what that might have been last week or yesterday doesn't matter. 

There's no consistency except lust for power and that they'll say whatever is necessary to get it Right Now. In fact, nothing else matters but Right Now. Well, except for stark, raving, pants-shitting fear...and that only matters so far as it can be used by cynical manipulators to get what they want.

But you cannot get somebody who is habituated to fear to suddenly be brave when it's convenient. You cannot get a cynical deceiver to be honest just because it's necessary. We should be learning this again just from watching what's happening to Russia right now and how the New Red Army is performing in the field. Even Russian patriotism...as seen in Putin's abortive "Victory Day" parade in Moscow...is cynical and perfunctory, almost mocking of past Soviet glory. And where once, the Soviets shook the Earth, now their enemies shake with laughter. Even Russian disinformation, once the absolute A-game on the planet, has gotten its ass kicked by Ukrainian "Meme Warfare."

So all they did was move the goal-posts and start targeting people who will always believe that shit anyway, while putting in a half-ass effort to discredit people who are against them and defending people like Donald Trump and Ted Nugent.

You cannot claim higher values, really, when all you have is debased fuckery. There ain't no Great Replacement, but there sure has been a Great Debasement.

The Party of Ronald Reagan has effectively become the Party of Pol Pot and Vladimir Putin.

We'd best prepare accordingly.

Слава Україна!

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