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
So, the other day Lizzo played a flute once owned by James Madison, and apparently "Conservatives"/racists are pretty damned upset about this.
Well, too goddamned bad.
Probably 90% of these fucking people didn't know about Lizzo and 99% of them didn't know about that flute before the other day.
And for those alt-right Nazi basement dwellers complaining that this is some kind of ritualistic "desecration" of "their symbols" by some kind of "victorious revolution?"
Well, two things; #1 If there
was such a thing, you
deserved to lose, you
always deserved to lose and you were
going to lose, so deal with it. And #2 You're telling on yourselves. Your "symbols" (other than racism, anyway) are never anything more than what you get an emotional reaction out of
right now.
Constant reactionary behavior and the outrage-of-the-moment ain't the symbols you think they are, and your fake-highbrow critiques and fat-shaming still ain't big enough to hide your racism. The only reason anybody other than flutists or Lizzo fans is even talking about this is because Lizzo is
Black.
And Lizzo is a classically trained flutist, by the way.
She has every right to play that flute, and honestly when I saw the video of her practicing in the Library of Congress reading-room, dressed in normal clothes, surrounded only by a few people, I think I was even more impressed by that than I was by her stage performance. She's good.
But of course these fucking people don't
care about that.
"Other people exist, we feel attacked" is a shitty way to go through life.
What a joyless existence it must be, being unable to appreciate anything simply for itself, seeing every single thing through a multifaceted lens of class, politics, race and supposed religion. Totalitarianism is boring. To see that, one only need to look at the difference between Kevin Sorbo's Twitter (and increasingly that of many other Republicans as well) vs. George Takei, Mark Hammill or even Tea Party Joe Walsh.
Of course, it's the same reason "Christian" fiction is usually garbage. When you're concerned with hitting all the right notes according to some formula rather than being good at what you do, or even being entertaining or caring about your craft...of course it's going to suck.
Perversely, for many this was the appeal of Trump at the beginning...he threw out the old script and just winged it.
Now? Trump redefined what the formula is, and it works on some people because it conforms to their biases.
It turns out that nobody knew the old conservative line was bullshit (Largely intended to cover up greed and racism) than Republican voters did.
This crap works like magic on a certain type of person.
Trump just cleared away the fog and ran on (and governed on) straight appeals to greed and racism.)
It worked for his base. Others, not so much.
I mean, seriously, what's in it for anybody else besides racists and (effectively) wealthy thieves?
So, rather than change, rather than admit they were wrong or even rethink a losing wartime strategy in the case of the Kremlin, the Right's collective plan is to double down infinitely and forge ahead, hoping they can somehow Calvinball their way to victory.
It doesn't seem to be working.
These motherfuckers don't seem to care. As if they think there's some kind of golden parachute in the dictator business.
As I've said before, if these idiots think the Ukrainians have given them a bad time, wait until they start shit with the Poles, or the Baltic States, or the Finns...and that's aside from the fact that doing so brings USAFE and USAREUR into the equation automatically. Facing the US Air Force and US Army of the 21st century is going to go very badly for a Red Army that the Ukrainians have effectively blasted back into the 1960's.
Have fun with that, Comrades.
Of course, the entire damned problem here is that because EU and US "Conservatives" rolled over for them so easily, the Russians think everybody else will do the same, they just have to figure out the right price, or find the right buttons to push, or something.
This is the whole damned problem with people who think in terms of formulas, or magic, or video games. In terms of reality, there's not really all that many magical woo woo shortcuts.
Throwing bodies and money at a problem usually only works for awhile before people get tired of it.
And then the Russians framed this whole damned mess in a way that left the Ukrainians literally no choice but to keep on fighting, because if they didn't the Russians openly said "We're going to destroy your country, your culture, your history and your language."
So
of course the Ukrainians were going to have a bottomless well of willpower and will to fight.
They have to, it's existential...not just for them but for much of the rest of the world, too...and they know it, and so long as they get the help and support that they need, they seem to not mind having this fight outsourced to them.
Even as it becomes increasingly clear that the US and EU are going to get dragged into it anyway. The attack on the Nord Stream pipeline is almost certainly a NATO Article V level event, and Putin just said he desires that conflict.
And in such conflict it seems as if the locus of power in such a fight has itself shifted East from France, Germany and the UK to the Baltic States, Poland, Turkey and Ukraine as well as former neutrals like Finland and Sweden. Not to mention who the National Security hawks are in America. Do I think this is going to have implications in and of itself?
Yes, I do.
Eastern Europe was basically colonized by the Russians after World War II. I think they had enough of that shit.
And it's funny how it's the elites in a lot of the old colonial powers like the UK that have a soft spot (or maybe more properly a hard-on) for fascism.
They're perfectly fine with being slaves, so long as they get to be a better class of slave than some of the other slaves. I've literally been saying this of "Conservatives" since 2015.
Beware of it, if these people start to celebrate Ancient Rome, for they desire to be slaves of the Caesars.
But If you want a better country, you have to be a citizen,
not a slave.
I'll ask again, what concord hath Christ with Belial?
What compact hath the Lord with Pushkin?
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
...
And so tomorrow, as we take the campaign south and west as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas, that the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A. we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people, we are one nation. And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea, Yes, we can. ~Barack Obama
No comments:
Post a Comment