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
...
Through me is the way to the suffering city;
Through me is the everlasting pain;
Through me is the way that runs among the Lost. Justice urged on my exalted Creator: Divine Power made me, The Supreme Wisdom and Primal Love.
Nothing was made before me but eternal things
And I endure eternally.
Abandon all hope - Ye Who Enter Here.'
~Sign above the gates of hell, Dante's Inferno.
...
When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto EcoI had to go to the store this morning.
Now, my route that I usually go cuts through two different neighborhoods, and passes an elementary school and the high school. On the way home, I went a different way, along US 23 and the shore of Lake Huron, which is where a bunch of the big expensive houses (and the Republicans who live in them) around here are located. You notice things, or I do, anyway. It's part inclination, part training because I'm a USAF Security Forces veteran, and I've worked in a casino and food service most of the time since then. Being able to catch it when something's not right is a survival skill. What people put in their yards or on their houses is very often indicative of other things about them.
Now, Republicans normally have a pretty good political sign game, not this year, I guess.
Yeah, I get it, part of that is that the Michigan GOP is broke and fighting against itself. Part of it is a conscious choice, and understanding that nobody else on a Republican ticket...from JD Vance on down, even matters, so long as Trump is at the head of the Republican Party.
Along the way, I saw around twenty Democratic political signs, mostly Harris/Walz 2024 and/or signs for Elissa Slotkin (she's running for Senate in MI.) Also, nearly all of these houses had flags...including but not limited to American flags, Pride flags, Ukrainian flags. One house that didn't have a Harris/Walz sign but did have an Elissa Slotkin sign had their entire yard peppered with small American flags. And, I saw a couple of "Stop Project 2025" signs in the mix, too.
And instead of upping their game and getting their shit together, Republicans are trying to act like Democrats somehow stole it all from them, as if there is only so much energy or joy (or simply giving a shit) in the world...and if that's true, they didn't want any of it...but now they're surprised that the other guys (and girls) picked that shit up, and got behind their candidate (like Republicans usually do) and they're happy about it??
I get it, Republicans are (and want to be) miserable bastards...and they want everybody else to have to be the same way. But come on, guys, what the fuck is in it for everybody else?? Who the fuck really wants to go through life being mad all the time??
And then, yesterday, during some bullshit campaign photo-op stunt at Arlington National Cemetery (and such things are, by the way, illegal because the military and all spaces associated with it...including National Cemeteries...is by law and tradition, non-Partisan) Trump campaign staff apparently assaulted an Army civilian employee for trying to tell them they couldn't campaign and film there.
Don't take my word for it, click the link.
Fuck, I just saw this myself.
And yes, even a Simple Assault charge in a case and place like this will land a person in Federal prison.
I saw shit like that happen both in the Air Force and in almost 20 years of working on a Reservation. Federal land is, well, Federal land...but an incident in a hallowed space like that is almost certainly gonna get all the books thrown at a motherfucker.
These fucking people hate America.
And honestly, I don't think these assholes are even campaigning to win anymore; I think they're trying to set up some kind of a bullshit justification for right-wing insurgency and secession, even though whatever they'll get is getting smaller by the minute.
I'm serious, These Fucking People don't want to live in America.
Republicans have become the Anti-Americans.
And the Signs of the Times, the Writing On The Wall, etc. seems to be saying that a majority of people have had enough of this bullshit.
And when, at best, they end up with some small, mean, poverty-wracked South Florida Banana Republic that's basically the Cuba of the newly Democratized New American Century where nobody has anything and in fact all they've got is Donald Trump and being the toehold on a Western lifestyle for Russian oligarchs and all they're living on is Russian tourism and whatever welfare package China and Russia cobble together to keep them afloat...Republicans will raise up both middle fingers at the rest of the world and call it a win.
Think about that for a second.
Reagan Wept.
These fucking people believed in the End Times so hard that they've basically destroyed themselves.
But the rest of us? We have a choice. Freedom isn't free, and we can fight for it.
You either believe in freedom, or you don't.
And all I can say to those people that are still Republicans is, I can remember when we weren't this.
And I'll be writing about that, to remind you.
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
Reporter: Mr. Said, how do you feel?
Kareem Said: How do I feel? I feel joyless. My brothers remain behind. Imprisoned, suppressed. I don't just mean my Muslim brothers, I mean every single man that will sleep in here tonight, that was cut off from everything that he loves. Cut off from his own self. You know, as the word went around that the Governor was gonna give somebody clemency, I saw a rift develop as each inmate wished himself to be the chosen one. The longing to be free became as palpable as the food that we eat. But it is a meal that I am being served right now. And I am Muslim. And Allah does not allow me to swallow certain things. Allah does not allow me to take scraps from the hands of a man such as this. A man who is corrupt and immoral. A man who denigrates the gift of clemency just as he violates the principles of justice. A man that gave the order that caused the death of eight people. And so, Governor Devlin, because even the cost of freedom can be too high, I refuse your pardon!
~Kareem Said, from the HBO series Oz, Season 2, Episode 8 "Escape From Oz."
No comments:
Post a Comment