That's right
We talk about your work how your boss is a jerk
We talk about your church and your head when it hurts
We talk about the troubles you've been having with your brother
About your daddy and your mother and your crazy ex-lover
We talk about your friends and the places that you've been
We talk about your skin and the dimples on your chin
The polish on your toes and the run in your hose
And God knows we're gonna talk about your clothes
You know talking about you makes me smile
But every once in a while
I wanna talk about me
Wanna talk about I
Want to talk about number one
Oh my me my
What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see
I like talking about you, you, you, you usually, but occasionally
I wanna talk about me
I wanna talk about me
~Toby Keith, I Wanna Talk About Me.
...
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
I saw this last night, and despite not feeling especially well today (Basic cold/flu bullshit I think I picked up at the store this morning) I've been following the DNC.
Some idiot CNN pundit is literally complaining that the Democratic National Convention isn't "White Enough."
Modern "Conservatives" have pretty much abandoned the American Revolution, they shit-canned Ronald Reagan at long last, and started confessing that they think a "Little intellectual elite" should make everybody's decisions for them.
So long as they think it's theirs.
And the first thing they do is accuse the Democrats (and government in general) of doing exactly the same thing they're doing.
Their whole bit is the "Left" is "Bad" and the "Government" sucks. You'll notice they never say how they think it's bad or what's bad about it, or why it sucks, only that it is that way or that's what it does. Hey, wait, aren't these people currently trying to be in government??
They don't even see that they're contradicting themselves, it's hypocritical and stupid.
That's what Project 2025 even is. I've read several summaries of it by other groups and today I started reading the actual Heritage Foundation PDF of the whole thing. It's a who's-who of abusive corrupt Republicans from the last 20 years with a large levy of ex-Trump Administration personnel besides.
It's the people who've trashed the Republican Party as it was and turned it into nothing but fuel for Trump's narcissism.
The entire prologue and mission statement of the thing reads like some idiot Evangelical garbage screaming "No, No, it HAS to be this way! You HAVE to believe exactly what I do! YOU HAVE TO!" No reason given. They don't have a reason. Because reason, conceptually, has nothing to do with this bullshit.
And the whole thing just oozes the idea that if you're not a Rich Straight White Conservative Christian Man, you should still have to act like one as best you can (or, in the case of women, submit to being their brood mare slaves) to do anything or get ahead, and they'll still hate you anyway. Even...especially...if it's not possible for you to be one of These Fucking People.
If you're the wrong Color, come from the wrong Culture or Religion, have the wrong Gender or sexual expression or simply don't Have any boots to bootstrap yourself up with to get so you could have any wealth in the first place, their whole bit is "Well, Fuck You, We've Got The Power, Forever."
(Unless you can overthrow them, and they can't ever imagine anybody could or would, until after it happens. Maybe we shouldn't let arrogant and unimaginative people who only care about themselves be in government??)
Yeah "...I've Got Mine" isn't enough anymore. This shit isn't about distribution of resources, or money, or social status in any conventional sense, it's nothing like that.
They could reduce America to a Third World shithole where half the population is below that United Nations global poverty line of like $2 a day, torn apart by civil wars and religious strife, embargoed by half the world with them having to go about with large motorcades full of bodyguards (Pro tip: A couple of Trump administration officials got shit-canned for exactly that in 2017 and Trump is always doing this himself now, and filming the shit!) and as long as there are still a few Billionaires for them to suck off and get money from and they're in charge and Something something Macho Bullshit...all presided over by Donald Trump or some other simpering jackass just like him, well that's just America, being "Great Again."
Regardless of who you are, unless you're one of that small criminal elite of Trump-cocksuckers and religious toadies, the only correct answer to all that shit is literally "Not You."
And all they care about is that they have The Power.
If you're asking "The Power to do what??" You're already thinking about it more than they have, and the truth is all they want to have it for is to enrich and pleasure themselves.
And then they're always surprised when somebody fights back.
Even though it's literally human nature to resist, even though they do it too.
Part of it is, like I said, most of these people aren't exactly imaginative or intelligent and they always figure that because they can't wait to fall in line and get in their place and start backstabbing and scheming and sucking dick for power to replace the next guy up the line while hiding what they really are behind ideology and religion...everybody else must be that way too, and just claiming the wrong ideas.
"Conservatives" see America like some kind of Mississippi country club where they're the members. Oh, sure, they'll let the Black people be the dishwashers and the Latinos be the cooks and the grounds keepers but that's about it, and women "should" be the pretty baubles on the arm of the man, and the gays little more than a particularly illicit form of after-hours entertainment and so on and so forth, and no one should ever, ever challenge their power to make these decisions or step out of place without getting the money and power and social acceptance from them first. You see how this works?
I don't know why the fuck they think anybody else who doesn't already benefit from this system in some kind of way would even consider signing up for it, or voting for it, and I say that as both a former Republican and a white dude.
And they're mad that they're not a majority anymore...or at least not in a position to think they are...and certainly not one big enough to simply dictate to other people.
Well, guess what? When I went to the store this morning (not to where I work, but the one just a couple blocks over) I stopped at the stoplight and a fairly well mixed group of mostly young people walked across the crosswalk in front of me, one that included Black kids and White kids, several Muslim people...both men and women in Hijab...of various ages and extractions and yeah, the obvious Christian kid too. 30 years ago, seeing a group of people like that here would've been like spotting a Unicorn in the wild.
It's not like that anymore, and thank God for that. We still have those people, but they're only a part of this vibrant area and country!
Me?
I wanna live in a world where the Vice President and major-party candidate can and does use American Sign Language!
The truth is these motherfuckers have never been the majority, but there were always apathetic people who'd just go along with whatever they said, because it was easy.
But in the last nine years Conservatives and Republicans have pushed too far and pissed off way too many people...including people like me. I'm White, I'm a former Republican, I have a church background and I'm a veteran. For the record, I'd never have been on board with something like Project 2025. I'm not a huge fan of "Big Government" almost especially when it's trying to dictate how I live my life, and even more so when it's trying to dictate religion and sexuality and social status...even if I was notionally in some of those groups, I knew enough people who were not and never could have been without giving up what they are.
I find it pathetic that Christians and Republicans were all in for that, and were even fine with being routinely disrespected...by Trump. All because they thought they were gonna use him to create a world where everybody else exists to jack off their narcissism. I've dealt with people who had personality disorders, no, it doesn't work that way. They use you to get that narcissistic high and then you get thrown away like a bent Pepsi can they were using to smoke their drugs off of.
And for all that, they're gonna lose, but Republicans have still debased themselves.
Fuck them.
And if they try to fight about it, well, like I said, freedom isn't free. Sometimes, you gotta fight for it.
Слава Україна!
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
When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco
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