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"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride."
~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press
I saw this yesterday, and I'll admit I've been following the story of that guy in Utah, Craig Robertson, who got shot for pulling a gun on FBI agents, and the Right's attempt to lionize him.
As I understand it, it was the people at "Truth Social" who turned him in for his threats.
Comparisons to January 6th insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt came up almost immediately.
A man who, in my opinion, is almost singularly not worth it, on his own level of not worth it. Like, what's even the point??
On the one hand, as ever, the cruelty is the goddamn point.
They're bored with the lives they have and/or the world we all live in.
"Disgusted by this shit" does not even begin to cover it!
We forget. We get bored and wander off. Other people. Don't. They might not have that option!
Of course, fascism, petty hatreds, racism, various things like that come to mind.
But honestly, I think it's even worse than that.
Trump has a way of commodifying people, of not only making them into nothing but characters in his own story...but making people of certain "authoritarian" or bigoted personality types want to be so.
You've heard of the Fourth Wall?
The Fourth Wall is an acting/theatrical/writing convention that says the characters in a play or in a story don't know they're characters in a story, and this can only be broken as a commentary on the rest of the story.
I think these motherfuckers want to be commodified, turned into nothing more than paper cutouts in somebody else's story, and used.
On the other hand, it's like some kid who has a shitty life (or a life they think is shitty) dreaming about being Darth Vader and Force-Choking people. These are the motherfuckers you don't want to have in your gaming group.
Because they're not there so much to have fun, as they're there to roleplay whatever shitty fantasies come to mind and shock (or outright torment) the other players.
These fucking people?
They want to be Characters in Trump's "Story" so they can do shit like that in real life...and then when the consequences come due, they'll blame somebody else.
Whether it's Trump, or the people they imagine he's "Playing" against, it doesn't matter.
They want to find a way to live in their "Enchanted World" for awhile, so they're gonna try like hell to do it. It's really that simple, and they don't really care how nasty, brutish and short their lives become as a result.
And they've decided, for all intents and purposes, that they should get to kill innocent people for fun.
Hell, for no reason, or just because they "felt like it."
This is the result of Fox News spending a generation targeting American Football fans. Trump finally gave them a "team" to be on, and by default, a "team" to be against...but along the way the idea moved from sport to internet bullshit, memes and video games.
Throw in bigotry, hate, prejudice, racism, etc. go ahead and see where that shit ends up going, every fucking time.
If nothing is real, they think they can do whatever they want...and presumably not go to hell for it.
Personally as a child of the video game generation, and as a gamer myself, I find even making these kinds of analogies disgusting.
But then, I'm also a former conservative and Republican, you do the math.
And I'm a veteran...the idea of bombing Mexico just doesn't even scan, to me. Mexico is the kind of complicated, vast country with a fairly intense history and their culture, while Westernized, has not forgotten the old gods. That's a place I don't think we really want to fuck around in, and it's not on the other side of the world like Afghanistan, it's right the fuck next door.
Like yeah, go ahead, dumbass. Pick a fight with a machismo-laden honor culture vs. America's notoriously-fickle level of dedication to anything and see how that works out for you.
Then wonder, while your ass is sitting in hell, why your great-great grandkids are still getting into fights on the playground in 100 years or so.
That's why the Ukrainians all kicked in, stood together and decided to fight the Russian invaders, for one thing. Half of America can't even understand it...or just flat-out doesn't want to. They'd rather make money...without understanding that there's some things that are way more important than money.
And that...aside from not understanding things like modern technology or social change...is why these fucking people will lose.
I might be a child of the video game generation, but I never wanted to be a character in somebody else's game just so I could kill people. Republicans, what the fuck is wrong with you??
That's not even what game theory is. You want to, you could argue game theory is what we have now.
What these motherfuckers think they want is a whole hell of a lot worse.
There are monsters among us.
If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen. This? This ain't it.
Слава Україна!
One
Nameless One: “Shadow of this life?”
Dhall, Dustman scribe: “Yes, a shadow. You see, Restless One, this life is not real. Your life, my life, they are shadows, flickerings of what life once was. This life is where we end up after we die, and here we remain. Trapped, caged, until we can achieve the True Death.”
Nameless One: “True Death?”
Dhall, Dustman scribe: “True death is non-existence. A state devoid of reason, of passion, of sensation.” [Dhall coughs] “A state of purity.”
Nameless One: Sounds like oblivion, why would anyone would want that?
~from Planescape Torment
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