Who Run Bartertown? (Not Legends, Not Myths, Facts. Three.)

Auntie Entity: And what did you do before all this?

Max: I was a cop, a driver.

Auntie Entity: Well, how the world turns. One day cock of the walk, next a feather-duster.

~From the film Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

...

As I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I take a look at my life,And realize there's nothing left,'Cause I've been blasting and laughing so longThat even my mama thinks that my mind is gone.But I ain't never crossed a man that didn't deserve it.Me be treated like a punk, you know that's unheard of,You better watch how you're talking, and where you're walking,Or you and your homies might be lined in chalk,I really hate to trip, but I gotta Loc,As they croak I see myself in the pistol smoke,Fool, I'm the kinda G the little homies wanna be like,On my knees in the night Saying prayers in the street light..

~Coolio, Gangsta's Paradise.

...

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50 (NIV)

I saw this shit last night.

On the feed of the Black Rifle Coffee Company...a veteran-owned corporation...some idiot called Trump's Idiocracy-Palooza at the White House "The Most American Thing They've Ever Seen."

Way to miss the fucking point, and I say that as a veteran.

Sorry, but I didn't serve for this fucking garbage and I also say that as a former Republican. Put that in your Keurig and brew it, asshole.

You either have standards or you don't. 

Standards and Truth are the basic preventative maintenance of a Civilization.

As I learned when I became a Senior Airman in the Air Force, you get what you tolerate. That's quite clearly a lesson that went way the fuck over somebody's pointed head.

And ya know, I get it. I knew plenty of people that were dumbass rednecks, or dumbass-whatever when they enlisted, but 30 years ago most of them learned a thing or two and ended up resenting the shit out of parents that didn't teach them anything and school systems that failed them, and came out of Basic Military Training and/or at least by Tech School actually valuing education on some level.

But then, 33 years ago in the United States Of America, being stupid was considered a bad thing.

Brawndo the Thirst Mutilator had come to replace water, virtually everywhere. Water, the basic component of all life, had been deemed a threat to Brawndo's profit margin. The solution came during the budget crisis of 2330, when the Brawndo Corporation simply bought the F.D.A. and the F.C.C., enabling them to say, do, and sell, anything they wanted. ~Narrator, Idiocracy

Fuck these motherfuckers. 

Sponsored by Monster energy drinks. Jesus Christ.

What the fuck is wrong with you??

But then, this is the same political party that brought a live Elephant into the convention hall of the GOP state convention in Texas and then was surprised when it pissed all over the place.

Of course, none of the idiots responsible were the ones who had to clean up that ungodly mess.

Also I can remember back in the 1980's when conservatives massively lost their shit over some idiot's art that included a crucifix in a jar of urine.

I never particularly liked the kind of people that got performatively mad about bullshit like that, especially since just cutting people off when they do that kind of tasteless shit is more effective. 

So what's the social penalty for letting an Elephant piss all over your convention, Republicans??

I'll wait.

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out.
~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

Maybe, just maybe, we should stop listening to These Fucking People, let alone electing them??

I get that racism, misogyny etc. rotted out people's fucking brains, but come on. When is enough gonna be enough with this shit??

I find the Elephant thing and appropriate example. America in general and American conservatives in particular have pretty much pissed away all their credibility with the rest of the world. 

The day will come when we wish we hadn't and it really is that simple.

And then these fucking people have the balls to be surprised when nobody wants to date them??

A year ago, when I wrote this post, I was all of five days away from reconnecting with my partner, and seeing as more than just an observer the casual evil that a hell of a lot of "Men" can just do, without even thinking about it.

I'll be the first one to tell you I've done some bad shit, I've made mistakes, but not on the on-purpose and clearly with malice-aforethought level of shit that my partner had to put up with from other guys. Christ, that she had to put up with from guys I thought I knew weren't capable of doing shit like that!

And yes, the two of us have been plenty mean to each other over the years, but the difference between me and my former best friend vs. her is, I never thought it'd be that way if I'd ever used the phrase "Keep my balls empty" because my ass would have been dead.

Some things, you just don't do.

Hospitaler: One may stare into the light, until one becomes the light. I've done it many times.

Balian of Ibelin: [throws a rock at a bush that catches fire by the spark] There's your religion. One spark, a creosote bush. There's your Moses. I did not hear it speak.

Hospitaler: That does not mean that there is no God. Do you love her?

Balian of Ibelin: Yes.

Hospitaler: The heart will mend. Your duty is to the people of the city. I go to pray.

Balian of Ibelin: For what?

Hospitaler: For the strength to endure what is to come.

Balian of Ibelin: And what is to come?

Hospitaler: The reckoning is to come for what was done one hundred years before. The Muslims will never forget. Nor should they.

[the Hospitaler slowly walks away as a second bush several yards from the burning one catches fire. The Hospitaler is nowhere to be seen in the clear and open desert]

~From the film Kingdom Of Heaven.

And I'd have deserved it.

That seems to be the part These Fucking People don't understand: Cause And Effect.

Well, that and they seem to celebrate being a miserable bastard. This pretty much is the whole Republican bit at this point.

Of course this whole thing at the White House is going to be a soup sandwich and it's going to further diminish America, the Republican Party and yes, ultimately Trump, because it's stupid.

And I'd put money on most of the people going to this bullshit event end up complaining how much it sucks by the time I get up tonight.

Meanwhile in New York City, I'm not sure what the hell is going on but it looked like a whole bunch of people were having a good time last night.

I'd rather have been in NYC last night than in DC today, just from what I saw in this short little TikTok video.

And that's the thing, in an Apocalyptic situation like that in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, the safest person to be isn't Auntie who runs the place, or Dr. Dealgood, whose job it is to distract the masses, nor Master/Blaster who actually wielded the power (literally) until he was betrayed and Blaster got killed (and again, there's a message in the fact that it was the smart little guy who actually was in charge.)

No, you wanna be one of the working stiffs pushing the turbines to generate the electricity.

I've written about this before.

This morning, it's probably safer to be the guy who has to clean up the Elephant piss than it is to be the guy who ordered up the damn animal in the first place, because nobody's mad at the cleanup crew.

The thing about America is, really, it's we the Regular People that actually have the power, not all these rich fucks and temporarily politically powerful nincompoops.

Nobody's gonna give a shit about Trump in five years.

We were a serious country once.

Remember that.

Слава Україна!

 [Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."

Two

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