Anything But America (October Unsurprising, Eleven.)

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still. ~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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When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

So, apparently Muskrat is a Russian asset who's been speaking to Vladimir Putin directly since at least 2022 (Which coincides a little too neatly with his hard-right turn and weird acting out, just sayin.)

It's like I've been saying, it's anything but America as far as these fucking assholes are concerned.

It's anything but "Love Thy Neighbor" and the list goes on.

Anything to justify their hateful bullshit...

MAGA, all these right-wing billionaires, Republicans, and Trump all hate America because they literally hate that other people have freedom, that we don't have to give them and their narcissism endless blowjobs and we don't have to "obey" them or talk nice about them, especially when they've done nothing to deserve it.

Yesterday Trump called America "The world's garbage can." I'm sorry, dude, but I'm old enough to remember when talk like that could get a dude beat up and thrown out specifically by Republicans.

I'm tired of this bullshit, all of it. I've had it with these fucking people. If you don't like America, get the fuck out. It's a free country, you can leave.

And let me tell you, I've really had it with these motherfuckers and their shitty hatred of LGBT people and women. 

Some of these motherfuckers be so far into this shit that they're looping around back into the gay stuff to avoid being "distracted" by women.

Fellas, is it gay to like women?? 

Just asking for Andrew Small Dick Energy Tate, here, a man who got owned so hard by Greta Thunberg that it took him like three weeks to get his head back on straight and he had to start hosting spaces with the goddamn Taliban on Twitter to start feeling all manly again. Nobody tell Andy how endemic situational bisexuality is (and always has been) in places like Afghanistan. He ain't the first dude to have them kinds of ideas.

The Taliban aren't some kind of hard-ass Islamic holy warriors, by the standard I was taught (and ya know, I've been taught enough to know what Muslim standards are, too) the Taliban are drug-abusing MSM (Men who have Sex with Men) and most Muslims will tell you that's not right.

But suddenly Andrew Tate of all people is all fine with Man Love Thursdays?

Of course Fucker Carlson tried to call Trump "Daddy" a couple days ago. 

So yeah, anything but a normal healthy view of...life, I guess?

Now if that's what you wanna be, fine. It's the 21st Century and all, but be honest with yourself and other people. Come on, dude. 

This ain't that hard.

Like, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these people??

Again, it's...well, literally anything but established ways of doing things, anything but treating LGBT folks and women with respect, anything but being a goddamn person instead of a meme.

And I'm even more sick of these dudes and their internet stupid shit than I am of Elon and Trump.

Part of the reason for that is there's a direct line between this kind of foolishness and those guys and their rise in our politics.

But apparently I'm not the only one who's tired of this crap. Nobody's leaving Kamala's rally, lots of people be leaving Trump's.

Thing that gets me is, every day it looks more and more like Trump is gonna lose. Hell, none of these fucking people are acting like he's gonna win.

But the media and the pollsters are still spanking the monkey to some kind of bullshit idea of Trump that's got very little to do with the man himself. What it really comes down to is: They want to sell crazy circus tent donkey-show bullshit for clicks and likes and get props as defenders of democracy. 

Trouble is, that stops working real quick when dealing with actual fascism especially once they just start shooting people and before long the only valid defense is to get your own people with guns and start fighting back.

Barack Obama seems to have figured that out, Kamala Harris knew it all along.

Hell, there are increasing numbers of Republicans coming out the woodwork saying enough is enough!

And since Kamala took over in July, after all this time, Democrats have finally started to fight back against Republican horseshit, to take back the Flag and actually act like they believe in what they're saying and that they have some level of confidence. 

I mean, shit, if they'd have done that 25 years ago we wouldn't be in this damn mess.

Of course, the far-right isn't happy with Republicans either and effectively accuses them of the same shit, basically saying that conventional Republicanism as it existed before, oh, 2020 or so is somehow just another species of liberalism.

These fucking people have jacked themselves so far to the goddamned Right that they're circling back around to Communist (actually more properly, Maoist or Stalinist) Totalitarianism.

Anything but Conservatism, too, apparently. These fucking people want to take Reagan's shining city and light it on fire.

And I'm warning you; Elon being in communication with Putin, not to mention this Axis Of Evil shit between North Korea and Russia tells me these fucking people have figured out they're probably not going to win...not here and not in Ukraine...at least not by any conventional, constitutional, or legal means.

Of course, they couldn't pull it off when they had control of the government, so I'm less than worried that an actual Coup by Trump and company would actually work or do more than get a bunch of people killed.

What's that leave? Insurgency, Revolt, Secession(s.) The energy for it is there, if probably not much intelligence to pull it off with. Helping that type of shit is one way Russia can reduce our ability to help the EU, our NATO allies, and Ukraine. Say MAGA breaks off 10% of America for itself, 90% America is going to be 10% less capable of helping others resist Russian bullshit in addition to fighting our own conflict. MAGA Banana Republic also gives Russian Oligarchs a taste of that Western life that they've been missing since 2022.

My operative theory for a long time now has been that these assholes are going to try to break off a piece of America for themselves. I even have an idea or two of what they're going to try and take, 'cause among other things, there's a lot of damned Russians in south Florida (and that's just one example.)

MAGA is going to try for a civil war, they probably won't get the full Fort Sumter, though. Most likely we're going to end up with a bullshit right-wing insurgency that'll be absolutely, dangerously, incompetent. These idiots will mostly blow themselves up. That's not an improvement, it makes them more dangerous because they're stupid and untethered to morality or reality.

But owing to 30 years of Republican unreasonableness, I don't have a lot of confidence in the unity of the American body politic. I've seen too man Blue State liberals all too willing to throw Red State liberals under the bus if something happens.

And that's not acceptable either. We're either all Americans or none of us are.

It's those who are increasingly rejecting the label that are the problem.

'Cause it's probably going to take a war, and serious reforms of our government and of what we as a people will tolerate in order to make this shit stop. In other words, fundamentally, a lot of people are gonna have to get off their ass and all pull in the same direction for awhile.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

You'll either fight for it, or we'll all lose it.

It really is that damned simple.

And winning this thing starts by being a better citizen and voting these Republican motherfuckers out.

It's by no means the end, but we can at least start the process in a couple weeks.

The time to stand up and say "No" is now, before it comes to all that other shit.

 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

Ten

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come. ~Caesar, Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene II, William Shakespeare.