We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.
~Hunter S. Thompson.
...
"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride."
~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press
I keep seeing dumb shit from Right-Wingers about COVID-19 again lately...most recently Ron DeSantis in his ongoing attempt to be Soviet Jesus *Cough* Republican presidential candidate, 2024.
Do I really need to remind y'all what that shit was like the first time, again??
Or how about the fact, that between the two "sides" in this country, it's Republicans and right-wing religious people in general and older people in those groups in particular (You know, the ones Republicans convinced not to mask up, social distance or get vaccinated when that became available) who took the worst losses from the goddamned virus in the first place!
It might even kill you!
It's not capable of caring who you are, it's a Virus. It can't be bargained with or reasoned with or redirected at your "enemies" it's a Virus. It doesn't give a fuck, it's a Virus. Throwing a Virgin in the volcano to appease the Unga Bunga gods won't help you, because the Unga Bunga gods aren't real and Viruses are.
You breathing? Warm body? Congratulations, you're eligible to be infected...
UNLESS you take certain, science-based precautions like wearing a mask, staying away from other people as much as possible or getting vaccinated.
This isn't a plan to take away your gun, your Jesus, your Masculinity or your Whiteness, nor is it some kind of plot to turn you into a "Liberal" (whatever that even means.)
It's just really, really hard to be conservative (or much of anything else, really) when you're dead.
But Republicans find made-up threats a lot easier to deal with than real ones, I guess.
And it amazed me, honestly, how few people at that point seemed to understand the concept or the finality of death...for people obsessed with death and the furtherance of death and killing their enemies and visiting suffering on the undeserving...when push actually came to shove, "Conservatives" seemed to think it was all a game with a really slow respawn rate or some bullshit.
Like, seriously I swear nobody ever actually dies in Q-Anon-Land but somehow the world is populated with clones and robots Sasquatches and Unicorns and goddamn but I wondered what kind of drugs those people were on after awhile.
And it's funny how anybody with a brain in their head at that point, Democrat, Republican or neither, hated Trump and his constant incompetent blathering about people drinking bleach and shoving light bulbs up their asses and shit.
(Also, we seem to be circling back around to that, too, only more people hate Trump this time around, no matter what some bullshit poll says.)
What you did during the worst parts of the Pandemic is probably what you'd do in any other major crisis.
When people are habituated to endless pants-shitting violent fear or literal addiction to watching people spew hateful bullshit on their favorite Infotainment channel (and don't tell me it isn't that, I've literally watched these people, close up in detail and I did it during the Pandemic too) you can't turn that shit off or switch it to courage or having the judgment to find accurate information because that's what's convenient to or needed by or even wanted by the people who sold you the bullshit-ass bill of goods in the first fucking place.
There's a reason courage is regarded as a virtue and fear is thought of as sin and vice, whatever one might suffer for having courage...it's usually over a whole hell of a lot faster than a life lived in fear. Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar that 'cowards die many deaths, while the valiant taste of death but once.'
Fear takes a cost, whether you want it to or not.
What you did in the spring and summer of 2020 is...well, what you'd do any other time.
Same goes for how did you react and which side did you take during the George Floyd protests, the Invasion of Ukraine, and which side you're taking as the Democrats vs. Republicans argument limps slowly towards people shooting at each other over it.
Remember how in 2020 it looked like America could come flying apart at any moment? The situation has not improved very much.
And we'd best start facing the problem and getting our shit together, because on the other side it's already going to to be Dumbpocalypse Now and we don't need both sides doing that.
America is a pluralistic, secular country based on freedom and rights, governed on the basis of a Constitution that says your God doesn't get a vote.
America is based on citizenship, not religion.
Which is probably a good thing, given that some people's idea of American Christianity seems to exclude Christ Himself in any measurable capacity.
Our government and values stem from the Enlightenment, our status as a world power and success among nations, very often comes from things like science and technology. Long after people like Bill Gates or Donald Trump or Elon Musk have been forgotten, people will remember that America put a man on the Moon.
Too much of the world, ultimately, will not remember that so many of us choose repeatedly to be parochial and willfully ignorant, with malice aforethought.
But I remember, and I made a point of marking that shit down.
If you want a better country you're, sooner or later, going to have to be a better citizen.
And this ain't it.
Слава Україна!
We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary. ~Malcolm X.
Nobody Cares About Dixville Notch
No, COVID-19 was not about "Getting" Trump.
For the record I was just as tired of Bernie Bros as I was of Trump Supporters.And I'm going to keep reminding people for as long as it takes.
(Links all to posts from March of 2020, I'm going to seriously keep tagging these onto posts, month by month, for as long as I need to.)
No comments:
Post a Comment