Downsizing (Left Behind Is A Lie V, Eight.)

Yuri Orlov: [At Andrei's presidential compound showing the Liberian president a silver revolver pistol] The Glock is interesting. It is made of a polymer composite. Many of my clients feel that they can go through airport security without seeing a lot of bells and whistles. Personally, I do not recommend that. [Andrei chuckles glancing over at a guard flirting with a female staffer] On the other hand, if you are looking for traditional wheel gun, there is no substitute for six inches of muzzle energy of 357 mag I mean, of course, it will never jam. [Andrei shoots the guard flirting with the female staffer] WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!

Andrei Baptiste Sr.: [Aims gun at Yuri] WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

Yuri Orlov: Now, you gonna have to buy it! IT IS A USED GUN! How can I sell a used gun? [Takes pistol from Andrei with his son and bodyguards all aiming rifles at an entirely still business-focused Yuri]

Andrei Baptiste Sr.: A "used gun"? A "used gun"?! [Chuckles] That's a good one. You know? There is no discipline with the youth today. I tried to set an example, but it is difficult huh? Personally, I blame MTV. [Smiles and Yuri nods in acknowledgment] A "used gun"? [Chuckles heartily, gets up and extends hand for handshake] I think you and I, we can do business. ~From the film Lord Of War.

...

"I didn't want to do it,'' he hears himself saying. "I didn't want to leave them behind.''

The void laughs at him. There are miles of empty air beneath his dangling feet. "You had no choice.''

"Yes I did! I didn't have to come here.'' He pauses. "I didn't have to do anything,'' he says quietly, and inhales another lungful of death. "It was all automatic. Maybe it was inevitable.''

"-- Evitable,'' echoes the distant horizon. Something dark and angular skims across the stars, like an echo of extinct pterosaurs. Turbofans whirring within its belly, the F-117A hunts on: patrolling to keep at bay the ancient evil, unaware that the battle is already lost. "Your family could still be alive, you know.''

He looks up. "They could?'' Andrea? Jason? "Alive?''

The void laughs again, unfriendly: "There is life eternal within the eater of souls. Nobody is ever forgotten or allowed to rest in peace. They populate the simulation spaces of its mind, exploring all the possible alternative endings to their life. There is a fate worse than death, you know.'' 

~From A Colder War, a novella by Charles Stross.

...

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

I saw this yesterday.

In a word "Fuck No."

Okay, that's two words, but you get the point. I'm tired, I'm damn tired of all this Trump bullshit. King Trump?? Fuck No.

I'm tired of Republicans just endlessly blowing the goddamn narcissist, like, what's even the point?? He doesn't even care and you don't even enjoy it, so why do it? Are you that lacking in belief in anything, or in direction or meaning or purpose in your lives??? I mean, come on. What the fuck kind of loser makes Trump their fucking identity??

I mean, on a certain level I get that Trump is (and to one degree or another has been since the 1980's) some kind of lifestyle brand for assholes, but you'd think the novelty would've worn off by now.

Donald Trump is most certainly NOT the "Living embodiment of the Constitution." You'll notice that nobody ever said that kind of shit about Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, or either Bush, and those were all the pre-Trump Republican presidents of my lifetime. Nobody said any of those guys deserved three terms, let alone tried to make them look like some kind of Roman god. 

This crap isn't conservatism or Republicanism, it's a fucking cult.

More to the point Elon and Trump are openly fawning over Vladimir Putin, running America into the ground at full speed, stealing the public's money, threatening Ukraine and wrecking the US military. It seems to me that people, even Republicans, are figuring this out and are getting very pissed off.

It's been *Checks Notes* 32 days.

Nobody gives a damn about Joe Biden, retiree, anymore. It's not Democrats doing this crap!

The "Own The Libs" crap isn't any fun anymore, not for old Republicans who are worried about Elon Musk taking their Social Security. They're changing from worried to pissed off.

The thing is, Politics turned into a game for a very long time, and Republicans exploited that. Then you have these dumb-shit weirdos like Elon start fucking with shit that's deadly serious for a hell of a lot of people. Then it's not a game anymore. It's not fun or funny. Like it or not there's very few Americans that are wealthy enough, whether they like it or not, that they don't need a functioning Federal government. Hell, a lot of our shit is structured around Federal programs!

More to the point, most of us need a Federal government that reliably employs people, fights our enemies instead of kissing their asses, pays its bills, and supports the international structures that kept America at the top of the pile.

You cannot run government like a "Business."

Not when business itself has become "cut everything to the bone, take a big payout, make sure the stockholders get theirs one time and then lie and engage in enough fuckery to keep regulators and shareholders distracted until a couple of cycles later when business is in the crapper because of what you did and the board realizes it and then fires your ass." Collect Golden Parachute money and pass Go. This shit doesn't do anything, it doesn't make anything, it just moves money around.

Good work if you can find it, I guess?

Most of the shit government actually does simply doesn't have a workable profit motive.

You cannot run a country like that. Hell. running a business like that doesn't actually work either, in case you were wondering why most people hate their jobs nowadays.

And what has any of this crap actually done??

Well, it's apparently created Canadian Nationalism, which wasn't even a thing last October.

Elon and Trump's constant divisiveness has turned our enemies into our friends and when push comes to shove, turned a fair percentage of Americans against each other. These motherfuckers don't give a shit about America. Hell, if they have to they'll gather their cults together and break off a chunk of America for themselves before they face the goddamn music (I suppose they figure they have enough actual fascists and wannabe-monarchists to pull it off now) and yes, they will absolutely leave Republican congressmen to face angry mobs of conned normie-Republicans in their own districts, and worse.

Because that's kind of what These Fucking People do.

Cut and run, downsizing, "Peace With Honor," and "Strategic Withdrawal" and throwing somebody else under the bus are words Americans have gotten used to hearing over the last 60 years. The difference is that unlike Vietnamese or Afghans, the Ukrainians have other sources of support and are willing to stay and fight. It's Republicans who don't WIN anything anymore, they make the big score, they turn a profit, and then they get the fuck out and try and leave as many Other People stuck holding the bag as is physically possible.

That's not just Trump's M.O. it's the whole Party.

It's Vulture Capitalism and War For Profit as a political movement.

And yes, that's exactly what these assholes are going to try to do here.

They've been doing it since Nixon, Trump is just the one guy who could successfully sell it, unvarnished, to a big enough chunk of the masses to get them to think they could buy in. Trump tried to say he'd be something different, he became a battering ram for more of the Same Old Shit.

You know, what people were tired of in the first place!

Now they're figuring out that was an illusion and they're just going to get stuck holding the bag.

I don't think the Revolution is gonna work out quite how these fucking people planned it.

Not least because most of us don't want to keep living like this.

As for Republicans? They'll keep downsizing America until they get it small enough they can stay in power forever and keep all the money. And then they'll get mad when the rest of us on the rest of this landmass figure it out, rebuild, and have decent lives...and eventually we'll even fight off Russia, liberate anybody we have to, and start making money again...without them.

See, it's not just, or even really the money that's the important part. It's the narcissism, stupid. They'll be mad as fuck when they're no longer the center of attention.

These fucking people have been willing to become the Beast of Revelations their own damn selves to keep the spotlight on. In case you wonder why I say all that Left Behind, End Times shit that I was taught was a fucking lie. 

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Now what are we gonna do about it??

Слава Україна!

Osman Ali Atto: I see not catching Aidid is becoming routine.

General William Garrison: We're not leaving Somalia until we find him. And we will find him.

Atto: (scoffing) You've been here, what, six weeks? Six weeks, you tried to catch the General. You put up reward posters. $25,000. What's this, gunfight at K.O. Corral?

Garrison: It's O.K. Corral.

Atto: Don't make the mistake of thinking because I grew up without running water I am simple, General. I do know something about history. See all this? It's simply shaping tomorrow. A tomorrow without a lot of Arkansas white-boys' ideas in it.

Garrison: Well, I wouldn't know about that. I'm from Texas.

Atto: Mr. Garrison, I think you should not have come here. This is civil war. This is our war, not yours.

Garrison: Three hundred thousand dead and counting. That's not a war, Mr. Atto. That's genocide. ~From The Film Black Hawk Down.

Seven

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