Red State (Signs Of The Times, Six.)

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan

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Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

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I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.' We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

Winston Churchill, Speech in the House of Commons, after taking office as Prime Minister (13 May 1940)

So I see yesterday, that the Department of Justice has indicted a couple more Russians on charges of election interference, and implicated...well, pretty much most of the well-known right-wing influencers in taking money from the goddamned Russians...to the tune of like $400K-$500K a MONTH.

Like, are you fucking kidding me with this shit??

And if you think it stops with motherfuckers like Benny Johnson and Tim Pool you have another thing coming.

And I'd bet you money that most of them would betray us for rather less than a half-million bucks a month.

I wanna see an investigation of Republican members of Congress...especially of anybody who has held up aid to Ukraine, or US Armed Forces and Justice Department confirmations and promotions.

I mean, I get that these fucking people hate America, but if you actually look at how Russia conducts itself on the world stage, you'd think these assholes would have some degree of, I don't know? Self-preservation, or maybe even remember that Russia is still ruled by the dregs of what Ronald Reagan called the Evil Empire?? You know, the Soviet Union, the very same polity that US and NATO armed forces faced off with for 40 years across a no-man's-land of barbed wire and minefields and outright fortifications, until ordinary Germans and Poles and other Eastern Europeans decided they'd had enough and overthrew Communism in their countries in November and December of 1989, which was followed by the ostensible fall of Communism in the Soviet Union in 1991. Apparently, the Cold War might've had a different outcome if the Communists would have re-branded as "Conservatives" and "Nationalists" sooner?? I'd like to think better of previous generations of Republicans, but I'm not sure that I do. 

Do I think Reagan would have sold us out?? No, But his administration was full of duplicitous shit-birds who probably would have, if they'd have thought they'd get away with it. These are, after all, the same fucking people who gave us Oliver North.

Fuck all that.

Of course, I get it. I wrote an article in 2019 on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall about the fact that Republicans were talking about the goddamned Berlin Wall...the very symbol of Communist oppression...like it was a good idea.

Hell, I said "Republicans are basically Communists now" when Trump said "Build The Wall." I don't like being this right, yo.

Of course I also remember that for the first couple years of Trump's presidency, there were endless pictures of Republicans with Russian spy Maria Butina, who apparently slept with half the guys in the GOP and caused the rest to trip over their own erections, or some shit. I mean, come on, I thought...this bitch was like, everywhere and was seen even with dudes like Rick Santorum who were supposed to be all about family values and marriage and shit like that.

But then like, most of the entire goddamned GOP got itself Honey-trapped by one woman? How does that even work??

Of course, then she got arrested by the FBI and was convicted as a spy, locked up for six months and then deported back to Russia, where she was hailed as a national heroine and went into politics.

So yeah, it's pretty easy to believe that Republicans are up to their eyeballs in Russian money (among other things, probably.)

I get the term "Red State" and all that, but I don't think the people who coined that shit or came up with the 2000 election map that spawned the term meant it quite this way.

I guess my main question is, how far down does the rot go??

How far down the list would you have to get before you found a Republican official that genuinely believed in America and that didn't, or wouldn't, take money from the goddamn Russians??

I mean, these fucking people are our enemies, they say so, Russian equivalents to Fox News regularly threaten the West in general and America in particular with nuclear Armageddon on their prime-time news shows!

And Republicans, from Trump on down detest those who are charged with defending America, its Constitution and its people...not to mention veterans like me or my Mom's partner who have previously done so...while cozying up to our enemies?

I used to be a Republican. Back then, we hated Communism and the Hammer and Sickle and the Soviet Union...and most of us never got to liking Russia all that much back in the day, either.

Now other people can hold up signs saying Republicans hate America and they're right.

I can remember when even speaking favorably of somebody like Vladimir Putin would get a person beat up, by Republicans. I can remember when These Fucking People would take one look at Vladimir Putin, KGB Agent, and assume the man could conjure Devils. I can remember when conservatives thought people like Vladimir Putin and his Oligarchs and Siloviki to be the goddamned enemy.

Now they take money from the motherfuckers?

That's right, the "Better Dead Than Red!" people are taking money from the fucking Commies.

All the Commies had to do was get rid of the social welfare stuff!?

(Probably a good thing they didn't realize this in, like, 1985.)

And all this shit came out like two days after these sons of bitches got caught giving ideological blowjobs to fucking Nazis?

Please, make that shit make sense, 'cause I sure can't.

I guess if you're a "Conservative" it's anything but America these days.

Look, America, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

At this point, this election shouldn't even be close. The fact that it's probably going to come down to a fight to get these assholes to stop fucking with the rest of us and trying to destroy our country pisses me the fuck off.

And the worst part is, I'm not even surprised, just disgusted.

Слава Україна!

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning.

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran

Five

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press