Relentless Self-Abuse (Left Behind Is A Lie II, Nine.)

There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. Who knows? If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix — a clean well lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except those who know in their hearts what is missing... And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Generation Of Swine.

I saw this earlier.

Note that I say this as a former Republican myself, I am goddamned tired of Republicans relying on Democrats to extract them from their own idiocy. I'm not alone, apparently, so is Hakeem Jeffries. 

I can't help but take note of the fact that nobody, except for Republicans themselves, or Dude-bros who obviously have Republican sympathies, actually thinks Democrats should have to bend on the behalf of Republicans who absolutely refuse to  compromise or give anything themselves. Seriously, fuck these motherfuckers.

Maybe it's just me, but I think we need to stop promoting people, politics and philosophies that take a savage glee in being an unreasonable son of a bitch for the sake of being an unreasonable son of a bitch.

Not that I would expect anything better of Italian Satellite Conspiracy Theory Guy...and this dude was a fucking General officer? 

My God.

Stop promoting the village idiot, America.

So much of this crap is nothing but performative bullshit, on the part of people who...if they are who and what they say they are or if their oath was ever worth a crap...should 100% know better. 

But of course they aren't, they don't, and it's not.

We as a people need to start expecting better of our government and of people in leadership positions, both civil and military, both public and private, and that is not a joke.

Because as of this evening, by the end of Day Two of the Great Republican Dumpster Fire, Kevin McCarthy had lost a total of seven votes for him to become Speaker Of The House.

Used to be if somebody couldn't, or wouldn't, do their goddamn job they got bum-rushed out the door, discharged under other than honorable conditions, fired, not reelected, you name it. 

You get what you tolerate, America.

This is the inevitable result of people being given participation trophies, passed when they should have washed out, or allowed to do whatever so long as they tick certain ideological boxes or have the right friends or, of course, are right-wing white dudes.

My last job was a complete soup sandwich because people basically got promoted, not based on ability or competence or work ethic, but on the basis of who laughed with who in the breakroom, who hung out with who outside of work, and so on.

Of course, the Right side of the aisle in Congress at least, would be no different. Why should we expect anything better than that?

But of course, now Republicans are looking at Democrats, hoping the other side will throw them a lifeline, go for a compromise candidate, whatever.

How the hell do you compromise with people who think "Compromise" means "Now you're going to do what I want, right?"

Like, here's Marge having, effectively, a Come-To-Dis-Pater moment about the fact that she can't even have a chance of getting what she wants without effective government. Like, you're a citizen of the United States of America, a member of Congress for fuck's sake...and how did you get this far without knowing that first??

And she's mad about it, mad I tell you!

Did she think, like in Russia, that she only had to fuck the right mafia don, schmooze with the right oligarch, talk nice to the little KGB President, whisper in the right ears or give some 300-pounds no-neck-double-ugly motherfucker named Ivan who had all the right prison tattoos a whole bunch of money and things would just fall her way?

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if this mess ends up with Kevin McCarthy being thrown out a window or eating a mysteriously radioactive sandwich or shanked in the back by Elise Stefanik...but this is America and we're not supposed to do things that way here.

You want things to work out your way, compromise politically you vote, you work with other people as needed...pragmatically...until you get there.

But of course, that's not the world MTG wants to live in. She, like most modern Republicans, thinks the body politic and the vote exist solely to ratify what she already wants, to give her what she desires.

And I'm here to tell you I've seen assorted fanatics and religious nuts literally wreck themselves being fanatical about shit that only exists in their own heads and they're still waiting for "God" to give them what they want and/or somebody else to bail them out 20 years later.

And inevitably, everything is somebody else's fault.

Why the fuck do we let people like that be in our government, like at all?

Stuff like this is why I, being an ex-Christian, a former Republican, and a military veteran, distrust fanatics, idealism and ideology.

Inevitably these sons of bitches always think somebody else should die, should sacrifice, should suffer, for them and their ideas. 

And increasingly, from the perspective of the Right, that burden should be dumped off on those least able to shoulder it, or who possess the least ability to politically stand up and say "No."

Why should we, as a people, keep putting up with this garbage??

'Cause if we don't stop putting up with it I can tell you exactly what that leads to. We see it every day on the news, in Ukraine. We see it in the horrors perpetrated in places like Iran and Russia in the name of Power.

And that's exactly the world the Right wants to live in, right there, but instead of Bucha, they want it in Birmingham, instead of Mariupol, they want it in Minneapolis. Instead of Engels getting bombed, they'd rather it was Edwards. These motherfuckers don't want to live in the same world as the rest of us. They'd rather strap bombs to themselves and die in fire shouting "Ayn Rand Akbar!"

Because for them the cruelty and the selfishness are the point, indeed, the moral purpose of their lives.

Because who will suffer more in such a world? The rich white "Conservatives" who can just go somewhere else if things go sideways? Or the less-rich, the middle class and poor, of all creeds, politics and colors who have to live here?

If government will not protect the powerless from the ruthless, what the hell good is it? 

And it's funny, just which side has decided on complete, willful obstruction, even of its own agenda if need be, to enable fascism and vapid, braindead populism here and abroad, now isn't it?

Reagan Wept.

When is enough, going to be enough?

How can people reach for the stars, when they can't even be bothered to do something so basic to their job and even their own claimed ideology as decide who's in charge?

And then to cover their ass, they claim it's the End Times and things will get worse! Why should we even tolerate this shit?!?! And they know it's a lie, but they also know that a third of the population will reflexively, or out of tribal loyalty, agree with that shit or at least pretend to. Why do we accept this??

Go ahead, I'll wait.

If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen, and this ain't it.

Religion, and religious fanaticism, outside of houses of worship and certain other appropriate circumstances is nothing more than public masturbation, and These Fucking People have turned performative Right-wing bullshit into their own, albeit very self-serving, religion.

Now they demand we bow before their debased altars.

Why are we putting up with this horse shit?!?!

Eight

Слава Україна!

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