Gnosis (My American Dark Age, Part Ten.)

Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war? ... He said "War is too important to be left to the generals." When he said that, fifty years ago, he may have been right. But today war is too important to be left to the politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. ~Colonel Jack D. Ripper, from the film Dr. Strangelove

I had a thought early this morning at work, specifically after reading the snipped quoted Tweet.

As regards Trumpist "Conservatives" and all that goes with them, we're no longer dealing with a political party here. We're dealing with a movement of ideological and racist fanatics that's trying to Immanentize their particularly shitty Eschaton.

Which is an ironic thought for me to have, given that I'm familiar with this stuff and used to be a conservative. The phrase "Immanentize the Eschaton" itself was popularized by William F. Buckley and his followers in the 1950's and 1960's. To "Immanentize the Eschaton," which means 'trying to make that which belongs in the afterlife happen here and now, on Earth, was exactly what Buckley and other conservatives at the time accused the Left of trying to do. In so doing they equated Leftism and Liberalism with Gnosticism, that is the belief that the chaos, disorder and untruth of the world could be transcended by extraordinary insight, knowledge or learning.

Of course, looking at it now, that view implies a certain tolerance for chaos, disorder, and injustice on the part of conservatives, but I digress. It's like if Buckley and the National Review would have gone whole-hog in supporting Ayn Rand and all the cranks and crypto-cultists instead of demonizing them and kicking them out of conservatism.

Never mind that in today's "Conservatism" the cranks and crypto-cultists, right down to Ayn Rand and the John Birch Society themselves, along with Q-Anon and every other damn nut you can think of, are the ones driving the bus.

And it's funny how this crap always seems to come back to racism.

The heirs of William F. Buckley on the other hand, up to and including actual National Review alumni like David French and Jonah Goldberg, are Never Trump Republicans, cast into the outer darkness along with people like George Conway and Rick Wilson and their Lincoln Project ad guys, and actively working toward getting Joe Biden elected.

If I had to guess, there's probably a reason for that.

Also, Speaking as a former pro-life conservative myself here I'd just like to point out that if even one person needs to die for your statue to have meaning, you probably need a better philosophy of life.

Need a better philosophy of life, you say?

KW Miller: Hold my beer, son.

So, not only is this dude a flaming Q-nut and a racist, he's apparently got some kind of mental issues and a persecution complex on top of that.

Wow, Republicans can really pick 'em these days, can't they?

It's like Idiocracy, but with even dumber people.

Trump Republicanism is full of people we'd never have heard of without Donald Trump, the dead enders whose next professional statement, without him, would be some variant of "Would you like fries with that?"

Without Donald Trump, Brad Parscale would be designing porn websites or something and still riffing (badly) on his Star Wars related opinions.

And these fucking people are going to fight like hell, and rub their dicks all over the country while they're at it, to preserve their...well, being relevant at all.

Every last one of these goddamned idiots, with their eyes shining with messianic fervor, would happily bring American empire and American power and international prestige crashing down around their ears just to have something they could say "Look at me, Look at ME!" about. It doesn't matter what it is. These fucking people don't believe in anything. But God sent them, as if that's not the oldest fucking trick in the book when it comes to trying to silence an argument against yourself. I mean, fucking seriously, it would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.

These fucking people don't believe in God. At least not in the sense that I understand what those words mean.

They just want to get famous, and to get money. If that means doing the bidding of Chinese Communists, Vladimir Putin or the Devil Himself they'll do it. It doesn't matter what it is. If Brad Parscale or KW Miller could get rich by singing old Frank Sinatra songs while wearing women's clothing they'd do it. If Angela Stanton King has to sell out every other Black person in the country, she'll do it and shed all type of crocodile tears if she's ever called to account. If they have to pretend they have a divine mandate and work up an affect full of messianic fervor that's just part of the tactics of trying to bullshit and flimflam their way into power.

And, as the current state of Trump's 2020 campaign shows, they'll shank each other right in the back just as well as you or me. And most of them have some sort of an ax to grind against their fellow Americans, mostly because we exist. I strongly suggest you should adjust your expectations accordingly.

These people see Black Lives Matter, the Democratic Party, anybody else who's trying to not die from COVID-19, and hell, the very concept of justice itself (social or otherwise) as detrimental to their holy work of Immanentizing the Conservative Eschaton to bring about Heaven On Earth for themselves alone.

If they'll otherize somebody like George H.W. Bush, John Bolton, John McCain, Mitt Romney or Rick Wilson, who all helped to get them where they are, to do it they'll sure run over you or me and not think twice about it. In point of fact, you can be the Trumpiest Trumpster that ever tried to Own A Lib and they'll gladly throw you right under Tommy Tuberville's burning campaign bus just because you went against Donald Trump basically one time. Oh, hi Jeff. Fuck you too!

The thing is, what I've seen of actual working for the greater good, or even simply doing your job, not to mention actual spiritual power or transcendent anything has mostly come from the other side, while the religious right bows down before an increasingly orange-hued Golden Calf.

And the entire Conservative mentality these days could be summed up as "Never mind what your conscience tells you, what the people want or what the Word says, just watch my Youtube video!" While they sit there counting their money and pondering shady investment schemes and pricey villas in non-extradition countries. Or worse, since they're facing an increasingly hostile electorate; How, when and where they can break off a piece of America for themselves so they never have to face the consequences of all this bullshit, not without a few million more deaths, anyway.

Seriously, we really need to stop paying people for being nuts.

I'd very much like My American Dark Age to end. Until we stop monetizing and tolerating cruelty, injustice and madness, that shit ain't gonna happen.

Part Nine.

The Polemic Of Pious Chuck (My American Dark Age, Part Nine)

Mad! If I'm mad then you too are mad; but it's all in the point of view.
If you'd looked at them things gallivanting on wings, all purple and green and blue;
If you'd noticed them twist, as they mounted and hissed
like scorpions dim in the dark;
If you'd seen them rebound with a horrible sound, and spitefully spitting a spark;
If you'd watched IT with dread, as it hissed by your bed, that thing with the feelers that crawls--
You'd have settled the brute that attempted to shoot
electricity into your walls.
~From The Ballad of Pious Pete, by Robert W. Service

Everyone is evil.

Everyone is lying.

Everyone is wrong.

Except Donald Trump. You're not paranoid if they really are out to get you.

Seriously how head-ass paranoid stuck on stupid do you gotta be to buy into this kind of fucking bullshit?!

Most of the rest of the world (not to mention almost two thirds of Americans) sees that Trump could fuck up a wet dream and his presidency, such as it is, is the governmental equivalent of attempting to polish your boots with a goddamned green pad. Most of the world (and two thirds or so of Americans, for that matter) is goddamned well aware of the deadly virus that's ravaging the world, and hitting America particularly hard because a substantial minority of us (mostly, but not all conservatives) can't seem to get their head out of their own ass about simple things like wearing a fucking mask.

But to people like Chuck Woolery...and Donald Trump...all this stuff, the low poll numbers, the financial crash, the virus, and the wrath of public opinion the world over is nothing more than some grand conspiracy against Trump.

And for what?

If true, I'll remind you again that sometimes when everybody is against you, there's a reason for it and sometimes the problem just might be you.

Also, By implication, perhaps one of the few yet unsaid-out-loud quiet parts, is that these fucking people are basically passive-aggressively declaring Trump their God.

When they're not busy trying to declare their own divinity, that is.

Or at least, not trying to present themselves as some kind of Greek mythological-type heroes in opposition to the Evils of Liberalism (whatever those are) which now seem to include Democracy...a concept that originated right alongside the basis of their philosophies...itself. These people...even though all too many of them lack the understanding of history or philosophy to know it...love the Platonic underpinnings of their politics and the whole thing about ideas being real while we humans are but shadows and dust.

Granted, the ideas they like are classism, racism, a particularly vicious selfishness, simple-minded base tribalism and a host of other evils that civilization is constantly trying to rid itself of but there you have it.

And they're perfectly fine with inflicting this bullshit on people they don't even know and may never even meet, for no damn good reason, because they think that's their right. They think they have some kind of specific right to be assholes.

In fact, to These Fucking People the right to be a raging dickhead is the only right that even matters.

Kind of puts a new spin on all those game shows and people like Chuck Woolery doesn't it?

And none of this is helped by Trump's basic ethos that not only should the powerful and the wealthy win, but that they should be the only ones who do, and those they take advantage of should either praise them for it or suffer in silence.

I guarantee you that every damn Trumper out there thought they were going to get a piece of this shitty little dream, far too many people failed to realize until it was too late that they didn't have enough zeros behind that number in their bank account to matter.

I loaded my gun at the rise of the sun; 
To his cabin so softly I slunk.
My neighbor was there in the frost-freighted air,
all wrapped in a robe in his bunk.
It muffled his moans; it outlined his bones, as feebly he twisted about;
His gums were so black, and his lips seemed to crack,
and his teeth all were loosening out.
'Twas a death's head that peered through the tangle of beard; 'twas a face I will never forget;
Sunk eyes full of woe, and they troubled me so
with their pleadings and anguish, and yet
As I rested my gaze in a misty amaze on the scurvy-degenerate wreck,
I thought of the Things with the dragon-fly wings,
then laid I my gun on his neck.
He gave out a cry that was faint as a sigh, like a perishing malamute, and he says unto me, "I'm converted," says he;
  "for Christ's sake, Peter, don't shoot!" ~From The Ballad Of Pious Pete, by Robert W. Service.

And it's not just that these fucking people demand they have a right to be assholes.

It's that they think whatever petty issues they have take precedence over...well, everything, including other people's humanity and Constitutional or human rights, in all respects, at all times. 

The USS Bonhomme Richard, in port at San Diego's 32nd Street Naval Base for refit, caught fire yesterday morning, the fire is still raging and has reached temperatures of 1,000 degrees. The fire has also caused masts and other upper deck superstructure to collapse, and the ship itself may not even be salvageable at all.

Beyond the initial rush of articles and commentary the story stayed on the public's collective mind for all of a couple hours yesterday. In normal times something this big would be most of what was even on the news for several days.

To my knowledge, Chuck Woolery (for example) hasn't even commented on the fire and he is a US Navy veteran. In our current world of being absorbed by The Trump Show 

And while we're at it, the virus itself, which even Fox News seems to have decided is real enough, is still killing people and states are having to start locking shit down again, in some cases instituting restrictions that were more serious than those issued the first time.

My state, Michigan, had a mandatory mask order for all places go into effect today.

I know a person who died from COVID, I know several other people who have had relatives get sick.

But yeah, go ahead and tell me again how all this is just some kind of a big plan to mess with Trump.

Again, people, sometimes when everything goes against you, there might be a fucking reason for it, and if the common denominator is you, and the problem just might be you.

It's time to put away childish things and teenage mentalities and face reality and start dealing with this shit, like grown ass men and women.

And if you can't do that, at least get the fuck out of the way so the rest of us can do it for you.

Otherwise, the Right's new UnManifest Destiny says none of us get anything but death.

They're taking me out with an escort about, and under a sergeant's care;
I am humbled indeed, for I'm 'cuffed to a Swede, that thinks he's a millionaire.
But it's all Gospel true what I'm telling to you--up there where the Shadow falls--
That I settled Sam Noot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls.
~From The Ballad Of Pious Pete, by Robert W. Service.

Part Eight.

Part Ten.

UnManifest Destiny (My American Dark Age, Part Eight)

I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.
I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid.
I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could; I swore to prevail; I camped on his trail; I plotted and planned for his good.
By day and by night I strove in men's sight to gather him into the fold,
With precept and prayer, with hope and despair,
in hunger and hardship and cold.
I followed him into Gehennas of sin, I sat where the sirens sit;
In the shade of the Pole, for the sake of his soul,
I strove with the powers of the Pit.
I shadowed him down to the scrofulous town;
I dragged him from dissolute brawls;
But I killed the galoot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls. ~Robert W. Service, The Ballad Of Pious Pete.

Seriously?

I've been too tired to write much of anything for the past couple of days.

But the other day, I managed to walk unsuspecting into a next of COVIDiots.

It was a simple mistake, a former coworker, who was...to be honest...the dumb kid, posted on Facebook questioning the need to wear a mask. I simply replied "Science. Wear a damn mask, it's not that hard, some people care about you and don't want you to get sick. I also posted a video of Bill Nye the Science Guy explaining why wearing masks is important. I ended up getting swarmed by a bunch of really stupid people that I don't know who, if I had to guess are probably fairly partisan Republicans and/or Trump Supporters.

Then he finally replied "Stay at home and social distance and all that if you want, but let me live free." Dafuq? It's supposed to be "Live free or die" not "Live free and die."

I ended up blocking him, and all his idiot friends. Let them figure it out, the hard way. I get that we should try to help everybody we can...but you gotta wanna be saved.

My Facebook and Twitter feeds these last few days have been full of stories of people who didn't take this crap seriously, who are now dead. I know people who've had family members get the virus. I know a guy that died. He had other health problems, but took care of himself. He was doing everything he could to not get sick, but somebody else wasn't. As far as I'm concerned people like Trump and the Republicans need to be held accountable for this mess, and then never listened to again.

Just sayin' people, the respawn rate in the game of life SUCKS.

But ya know, I've been thinking.

My mind keeps going back to the one statement: "Stay home if you want, but let me live free."

I have a job, I have bills, I have pets, I can't afford to just stay home. This dude knows where I work. He knows I can't afford that shit. People who won't wear a mask and won't socially distance, etc. are putting others at risk whether they realize it or not...and doing just one or the other is only particularly useful if you can avoid people. I can't for 40 hours out of my week.

Especially these days, "Conservatives" and what has become of the Republican Party bang on endlessly about "Freedom."

I put it in quotes for a reason, because the kind of freedom that can only come at a cost to somebody else really isn't freedom. If your idea of freedom requires other people to be put at risk so that you can have it, your idea of freedom sucks.

But that's the only kind of freedom they want, and these fucking people still seem to be hoping that the virus just kills off the rest of us, despite the fact that it's them and theirs who seem to be getting sick and dying in greater numbers.

But they don't care about that, do they? For one thing, they've bought into their own propaganda for too long. For another, I'm genuinely no longer sure that these people even give a damn about their own lives, so long as somebody else gets hurt too. That makes these fucking people every bit as dangerous as some Daesh suicide bomber or Taliban insurgent. In fact some of these fucking people seem to want to sacrifice their lives for classism, racism, for the profits of the rich people, for Trump and for white supremacy...or at least some kind of white superiority.

My roommate, who is Black, has over the last several days read or showed me some horribly racist or reactionary Facebook posts by co-workers and former co-workers. One lady that we used to work with, who seems to be in a state of perpetual meltdown these days posted "Never apologize for being white."

As if anybody is asking you to, you stupid bitch.

These fucking people's definition of freedom clearly requires others to be held down by the power of the State...if not actively put in chains.

But what good is freedom or profits or "racial dominance" for that matter, if you're dead because you ignored the deadly virus until it was too late? It seems like if you want to have power...you should also want to do what is necessary so you can be alive to enjoy it.

But that's not what's going on here, is it?

Millions of Americans have apparently been convinced that they should go out in some kind of blaze of glory...or choking misery...for the Manifest Destiny or the profits of, wait for it, somebody else?

This ain't some Taliban fighter shouting Allah Akbar as he blazes away in suicidal fury at US Army soldiers with better weapons and body armor who are backed up by Abrams and Bradleys. This is some fat pineapple eating ass motherfucker in a pickup truck or some crazy woman in a pizza joint shouting at clouds or the demons in their own heads mainly because they have this fake paste-up idea of their "enemies" that doesn't come even close to reality...and they might just manage to get fired from their job over it, lose some of their people, and eventually realize where they fucked up and have to live with what they did...mostly to themselves.

And the only thing they're even being offered in return is a cheap feeling of victory for "Owning the Libs" that in truth only obscures the fact that the people you were just screaming at are laughing at you as you storm out the door.

If we are to remain a civilization or a society at all, much less a free one, those who convinced conservatives to embrace this Unmanifest Destiny, to effectively destroy themselves for nothing, must be held to account.

But first, as of right now we've got about one third of our entire society actively trying to pull down the other two thirds along with itself. I don't know how the hell we're ever going to solve that problem.

Part Seven.

Part Nine.

Tango Foxtrot Papa (My American Dark Age, Part Seven.)

SEAT thyself Sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But from the same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary. But most humble though he was, and far from furnishing an example of the high, humane abstraction; the Pequod’s carpenter was no duplicate; hence, he now comes in person on this stage. ~Herman Melville, Moby Dick, "The Carpenter."

Tango Foxtrot Papa. These Fucking People, idiots, idiots everywhere. Goddamn but I've fucking had it.

I guess Walmart is going to start requiring masks chain-wide this week.

Good.

The way I found out about this, not so good, because I was stuck listening to this older lady that I know whine about this subject for quite a while. This lady is older, white, and from a small town, the sort of apolitical low-information person that doesn't bother to care about issues most of the time, much less actually vote. She's not particularly healthy either, enough so that if she gets the Coronavirus she has a pretty good chance of dying.

But damn, to hear her tell it, on top of everything else that's going on she has to wear a mask when she goes to the store.

Note: I've been masking up since February, and avoiding going to Walmart as much as I can because that really is where all the anti-mask people seem to shop.

You'll note that the person in the snipped pictures from this Twitter video, when asked "Why are you angry that I'm wearing a mask" basically responded "Because you're wearing a mask" before rambling on about stupidity, living in fear and the "Deep State" trying to control everybody.

No bitch, this virus is a natural occurrence, one for which we were probably a bit overdue, and the only ways to defeat this thing are reason, science, and basic self-preservation instincts. Like, ya know, if wearing a mask will help keep you alive you wear the fucking mask.

Why is this difficult? You wouldn't have sex without a condom or some other form of protection, would you? Would you go into a room full of poisonous gas without a gas mask on? would you smoke right next to a tanker truck full of jet fuel, or a bomber loaded with dozens of bombs? If the Zombie Apocalypse actually happened, would you go outside or go foraging without a baseball bat or some guns or knives or other weapons to protect yourself?

No?

Then why is wearing a mask different? Why has protecting oneself, or one's kids from diseases become a thing that we've politicized? And to what end?

Let me give you an example; There's a faction of Republicans (and of course the racists) that want to blame China for this and say Coronavirus is a biological weapon or something something gazpacho.

Now, think back to the COVID-19 outbreak aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt. How exactly do you fight a war when you have a virus incapacitating an aircraft carrier for two months?

Now, let's tack on, that there's also a faction of Republicans that is against testing or even doing anything about this disease...their usual excuse is the economy blah blah blah...but how do you fight a war or run an economy when you have a growing pile of dead bodies? How do you fight a war when you don't want to even test for the disease that's killing the troops? How do you maintain...well, anything, when people can see what's going on around them and know that something is killing people?! Or do they just assume that everybody is as much of a partisan fanatic as them, or wants to die to "own the libs?"

Morale, or people's desire to go shopping, or literally the entire medical sector or civilization itself is going to break sooner or later...probably sooner, the more you fuck around instead of dealing with it. I'm guessing their actual plan is as long as they can keep themselves, their assorted hangers on and retainers and enough users of force to protect them from getting sick, the rest of us can just die and civilization can go to hell.

But what are these motherfuckers going to do when all their money is worthless, the food runs out, and the guys with the guns are getting hungry and looking at them not as providers of employment, but as a potential meal? And no, don't tell me these fucking fools really think Jesus is going to show up and save them. Most modern Republicans seem to be a fairly irreligious bunch. Religion is for ginning up the base, manipulating the voters, and for the suckers that believe in it.

What a hopeless way to fucking live, ya know?

What the fuck kind of a life is it, to have nothing more to look forward to than having your boot on someone else's throat before you die, or to basically want to spend one's life as some kind of a petty warlord in a post-apocalyptic hellscape?

I'm not going to lie, I just don't fucking get it, and I used to be a Republican.

Also, a word about Kanye West's declaring himself a Presidential candidate:

No.

Son, I'm just gonna tell you this one time. You want to keep working here? Lay off the drugs.

I realize that we need to get the crazy right-wing ideology and the big money out of politics, but I'd like to propose that while we're at it we need to institute some sort of a program to keep vapid American pop culture out of politics as well. I'll admit that in 2016 I figured Trump was going to get his ass waxed, but his entire campaign fucking horrified me...and that was just the start. There's no shortage of assholes, whack-job conspiracy theorists, outright fascists and flaming religious nuts in American pop culture and media...or for that matter far-left whack-a-nuts that can be just as misogynistic or racist as the far-right, and then for good measure there's always the apathetic nihilists, outright shit-starters and vapid airheads. Maybe we should, ya know, stick to our better angels in some fashion instead of trawling through the sewer of American popular culture before we end up with Jenny McCarthy running on the ticket of some Anti-Vaccination Party? Just sayin.'

And speaking of vapid airheads, assholes and shit starters...

Seriously where in the fuck does Tucker Carlson, of all fucking people, get off talking ignorant shit about Tammy Duckworth?

I mean, sure, Tammy Duckworth lost her legs when her UH-60 Blackhawk was shot down by an insurgent with an RPG-7 in Iraq, and continued to serve after a long and arduous recovery when she could have just been medically retired and spent her days drinking gin and tonics down at the VFW and waiting for her disability check to direct deposit like many Old Republican White Guy Veterans that I've known..

...But ya know, Major, and later Lt. Colonel Duckworth didn't do that, she kept going, and also served in the state-level Veteran's Affairs department in Illinois, then was Assistant Secretary of Veteran's Affairs under Barack Obama...and then she ran for Congress. That suggests to me that Tammy Duckworth is somebody who gives a damn.

What has Tucker Carlson ever done for anybody but Tucker Carlson? I mean, before he got on Fox News and became the face of simpering, smarmy, snide Republican frat boys everywhere I mostly remembered Tucker for getting dogged out by Jon Stewart live on CNN. He's a fucking TV-dinner company heir who never had to do anything in life.


Tammy Duckworth's family bounced around Southeast Asia while her father (A US Army and Marine Corps veteran of WWII and Vietnam) worked for various private companies and the United Nations. She learned several languages and was an honors student at several International Schools before graduating from High School in Hawaii, going to college in Illinois, and becoming a commissioned officer in the United States Army Reserve in 1992 after graduate school. In point of fact, she wanted to be a helicopter pilot specifically because it was one of the few combat missions open to women at the time. She lost both legs and had one arm severely broken when her helicopter was shot down in November of 2004. If her story ended there and she'd spent the rest of her days sitting on the couch watching CNN it'd still be pretty impressive, just sayin.'

But she's a Senator, and a damn good one at that. I think that's pretty damn amazing myself. If she wanted to, Tammy Duckworth could be the kind of person people make movies about...and yet she chose public service instead.

Yet there are people who, given the choice between the two of them will enthusiastically declare that Tucker Carlson is the hero, because Tammy Duckworth isn't a quisling Republican who tells them what they want to hear on TV every night.

And Kanye West thinks these people won't throw him under the bus, too?

They're perfectly willing to destroy themselves, if it aligns them with Donald Trump's strategy of ignoring COVID-19 and hoping it will go away.

These Fucking People are perfectly well willing to set their own lives on fire for racism, to go to jail for racism, to burn down their country for racism, and to willfully ignore a deadly virus that could kill them, in no small part because of racism.

Yet if you resist racism or simply want to protect yourself and your own life, or even just don't want to be part of their shitty little tribe, these fucking people will say you hate America...even as they actively plot to burn the country to the ground...for Donald Fucking Trump, of all people.

I think the thing that most repulses me about modern Republicanism is that people are so disposable, but "ideas" like racism are not. It's like the analogy of Plato's Cave if there were cave paintings of dicks on the walls, tribal totems at the entrance, and a gold-plated bust of Donald Trump somewhere near the end.

I'm sick of this bullshit.

It needs to be said.

You know who hates America, its Constitution, its diversity, its history, even its military and major power status? Republicans do, that's who. Look at their actions, not just what they say.

These Fucking People hate America.

They will throw you under the bus. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do.

And Democrats and Never Trump Republicans and Black Lives Matter and the Lincoln Project, even the assorted disparate groups that get lumped together as "Antifa" are the ones who...for all of its faults...seem to love America and are the ones trying to save it.

Meanwhile, people like Tucker Carlson fool a hell of a lot of Americans into loving their own destroyers...and there's a non-zero number of people who think he should run for President.

End the Idiocracy.

Get these fucking people out of power.

Before we get any dumber and forget how.

Part Six.

Bait And Switch (My American Dark Age, Part Six)

A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it. ~William F. Buckley, National Review Mission Statement, 1955.

I saw this, this morning.

Apparently, while also wearing a mask, at some point Jeanine Pirro also had a topless picture of Chrissy Teigen on her phone.

My first thought, as articulated so eloquently along with most of the rest of Twitter was "LOL."

The second was; Okay, whatever floats your boat, I guess, I'm going to be honest here. I don't give a damn if Jeanine Pirro likes boobs. Hell, as a guy who likes boobs myself, I applaud her tastes. Also, at least she has the sense to wear a goddamned mask when she's out in public. So why the hell all the garbage-fire crap on Fox News every night?

Isn't a woman who's masking up...and who likes boobs...generally thought of as (gasp!) A Democrat at first glance these days? As I wrote recently I've known some LGBT Republicans...of those I still know, most are actually voting for Democrats nowadays.

And then I thought about it, and of course for some people all any of this political shit is, is just a big scam. I suppose from a certain point of view that has merit. The truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view, to quote Obi Wan Kenobi. I mean, she's reasonably good at her job, if one looks at Jeanine Pirro's actual job as getting people to believe stupid bullshit and making money off of it.

But as somebody who actually believed in this stuff for a majority of my life so far...despite the fact that I'm now on the other side, I'll admit to feeling a little bit offended by that whole idea.

Of course, the reasons I'm on the other side have a lot more to do with my own morality and what I was taught and the fact that I haven't moved, while a lot of other people have gone along with the crowd and whatever the actual truth is be damned, they've a crowd to follow!

And that's what a lot of this comes down to, belonging, even though the group you're a part of is an absolute human garbage fire and, well, if we've learned anything from the COVID-19 pandemic it's that part of these fucking people's aversion to lock-downs and social distancing and not going out is, well, they can't fucking stand each other.

But all too many of these fucking people lack the intellectual curiosity or the just plain guts to go out and make new friends or see something different or try something new, and all too often a philosophy that once was about caution and avoiding unintended consequences is constantly tumbling ass backwards into the unknown simply because far too many of these fucking people don't want to look forward or think ahead or wonder what the future holds. They're mostly too fixated on a mostly-imagined past.

I don't know what Jeanine Pirro's actual sexuality is and I'm not going to lie, I don't care., I feel kinda comfortable in saying she probably doesn't know either. But you know, I bet she'd be better able to deal with her issues, not drink or whatever, and maybe even shed that nickname of "Judge Boxed-Wine" if she'd find herself a girl partner with big boobs to play around with once or twice.

I mean, hell, find a woman willing to go along, film that shit and split the profits and from the viewpoint of what conservatives actually are, rather than what they insist on claiming to be, it's a win-win. Scratch that itch that confounds your life (or at least confounds the rest of us concerning your life for a couple hours) and make BANK doing it.

You can't tell me there ain't tons of Fox News-watching dudes out there who wouldn't pay to get that video. I know a fair number of these guys. The vast majority of them think with their peckers to start with.

I promise, the Evangelicals might act mad...but you watch and see who gives it the most clicks or spends the most money buying it and I bet it will turn out that the biggest customers for the Judge Box Wine sex video are...guess who? Evangelical conservatives.

I am 110% not joking, mathematically incapable of lying about this.

Which of course brings me to the crux of the matter.

This actually happened in Florida a couple weeks ago. Some anti-vaxxer Q-Bot dipshit took her daughter to a Church-sponsored "Covid-19 Party" and a couple of weeks later the girl died.

I've been saying for awhile now, that when the historical dust settles all that American-style "Conservatism" will be known for is the trail of broken souls and dead bodies it left behind in its wake as it marched on toward the endless horizon like some Lovecraftian horror.

Conservatism has become a philosophy that aligns closely with faiths that promise Eternal Life, yet all it brings is physical and in many cases spiritual death. It offers riches and wealth, but instead leaves all but the very few broken and destitute. It's a philosophy that trumpets manliness, yet finds itself ruled over by a teenage mean-girl in the body of a 73 year old man who likes gold and gossip and wears more makeup than a South Beach drag show.

Conservatism has become the ultimate con, a bait-and-switch that should be noted mostly for its sheer cruelty, and it's becoming my view that it should be treated accordingly. For too many people, claims of conservatism and religiosity are nothing more than cover for bad behavior, or to make their shitty political and social agendas acceptable to the fearful or palatable to the feeble-minded or to fool decent people...or far worse think that the people fooled by this shit are decent people with differing opinions in the first place. There was a time when that was true, but those days are long over.

The lack of self-awareness of people like Jeanine Pirro may be, in and of itself, amusing and mostly harmless to anybody else, but there are legit bad actors out there who want to use our multifaceted crises and that lack of self-awareness to kill people, or to break society so that they can re-order it to their own benefit with an end goal of ethnic and racial strife for profit, and death and disease for their own sakes.

And that is probably the cruelest bait and switch of all, that the belief system that once stood for "Things as they are" evolved to stand for "Things as we wish they would be" and ultimately became "We want what we want, and we're going to try and get it even if it kills our own people."

Fuck. Conservatism.

Note that I say this as somebody who used to be a conservative.

Part Five.

Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great. ~William F. Buckley, "Free Weed" article in National Review, 2004.

Forever War (My American Dark Age, Part Five.)

Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up among us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide. ~Abraham Lincoln, January 27th, 1838.

Seriously, bro?

How in the fuck did the Republican Party go from Abraham Lincoln to...Donald Trump?

Or Matt Schlapp, for that matter?

(Note that the picture is from Hong Kong.)

When Abraham Lincoln gave his Lyceum speech in 1838, I truly believe that he spoke prophetically and on some level, that he saw what was to be. I think he knew, and I think such was the only thing that gave him the strength to do what needed to be done, even though he may just as well have known that he would die of it.

What does Matt Schlapp see, of what future does he speak?

People like Matt Schlapp talk a good game about a certain part of, or interpretation or view of America, Oh yes, they do. But they discount the millions of people who...all for some arbitrary characteristic or reason...never get to truly partake of that vision of America mainly because people like Matt Schlapp won't fucking let them in the door unless they're "the help" there in some servile capacity with no chance of ever being anything more.

"Conservatives" or at least those who have come to claim that label, deny the very humanity of others, much less that they are American. It doesn't matter what they do, who they are, how much of America's or conservatism's interpretations or views they take into themselves nor how much they reject their own culture or religion or ways. No, it doesn't matter, not really.

I knew this guy once, a young, tough Air Force Security Policeman. This kid was fearless. He was fiercely Fundamentalist Christian, fiercely conservative, though often without being a dick about it...which was quite a feat at the time. He was passionately Republican, as much as one could be in 1994 and the era of the Contract With America and the Gingrich Revolution and still be in uniform, anyway.

I'd like to note that 1994 was the first year this 20 year old Airman got to vote, because he became a US Citizen, which he'd already been working on doing for several years to my knowledge. He voted straight-ticket Republican, and was very proud of that and confided in several of his bros that he had done so. We called this kid "Hawaii" but that was simply where his family had moved to, he was born in Tonga.

He wore his dress uniform when he was sworn in as a US citizen. He would go on to serve in Afghanistan and Iraq and retire from the United States Air Force in 2014.

That matters, and let me tell you why.

1994 was the days of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" being gradually implemented, it went into full effect that December and some conservatives like me shrugged and did our duty anyway because it was our job and we took to heart the words of people like Barry Goldwater, who said you didn't have to be straight to shoot straight.

Others were determined to resist LGBT rights by any means necessary.

LGBT rights was the Civil Rights struggle of MY time, in much the same way as Black Lives Matter and Trans rights define the younger generations today and even influence the thinking of people like this old white dude.

But ya know, I know people, people like the dude I just told you about. I didn't know he was gay until 2003, he came out to me at my friend Ron's wedding and introduced me to his partner and that was cool. I didn't judge, I simply didn't see it as my business or my place...though I'll admit to being a little surprised considering everything else I knew about him, especially his politics.

He wasn't somebody I talked to a lot, but we traveled in a lot of the same circles. He was on my list for awhile when I first got on Facebook, and even after he wasn't we were still in a lot of the same groups and shit. I'll get to that in a minute.

On the day that Don't Ask, Don't Tell was repealed and open service for gay people came into effect my Mom and I were driving up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and we were listening to NPR, which of course was all abuzz with the news of the day and we talked about stuff like LGBT rights.

Fun fact: A couple days after this, this dude that I was talking about earlier married his longtime partner, the same one he'd introduced me to all the way back in 2003. The partner was a moderately conservative white guy, a former Airman himself, who'd gotten out and gone to college, among other things...and had a pretty damned good job. Just as they had been when I met them, these guys were gay Republicans who occasionally joked that it was harder to come out as R than it was to come out as G-A-Y.

Anyway, a week or so after the wedding pictures were posted in the Facebook group, there was an incident and a couple more pictures were posted, of this dude's car with "FUCK YOU FUCKIN FAGGOTS" spray-painted across the back window.

There were, naturally, a couple of angry rants to follow.

The moral of the story is this. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter who you actually are, or how hard you fight for your rights or this country or simply to exist as a human being, some people will hate you anyway. No matter what you do they won't accept you and they'll keep moving the goalposts and "debating" in bad faith so they can't, whether it's the outright hate of a Fred Phelps or the Great-White-Father racism of somebody like John Wayne or some stupid Sea Lion on Facebook or Twitter. Their only goal is to time-waste the struggle for equality and freedom long enough that everybody gives up and goes the fuck home.

Fuck those damn people.

Fuck people like Matt Schlapp who would gladly turn the Culture War into another Cold War-but between Americans this time-and then amp it up into a shooting war because if California or New York City falls to Black Lives Matter than eventually Black people will expect full equality everywhere like some racist version of the old Cold War domino theory...or something. They'd rather hear the wail of air raid sirens in the night and the scream of jet engines overhead than hear people shouting "No Justice, No Peace."

And if you think they take help from foreign bad actors NOW...I 100% guarantee you somebody like Matt Schlapp would never see the irony of a Sukhoi Su-30Mk2 "Flanker" with the roundel of his version of America on the wings, nor of Red-Blooded Conservative American White Boys having to learn Russian so they could read the manuals during training.

And they'd take it, because they hate their own fellow Americans, their own fellow Citizens, more than they ever really hated Soviet Marxists or actual fucking KGB agents like Vladimir Putin.

In fact, I'd argue that the Soviet Communists were never anything more than a cut-out, a political stand in for the Kabuki play bullshit they had to say because if they openly articulated that much hatred for their fellow Americans or said they wanted to bomb or invade Chicago instead of Hanoi or Pyongyang, somebody might notice and do something.

Don't take my word for it, look it up for yourself.

Throughout the Segregation era and the Civil Rights struggles, these fucking people constantly conflated Blackness with Communism and their own evil and racism with Capitalism, Righteousness and the Natural Order Of Things.

Again, don't take my word for it. You can find it in their own words.

Same with Jewishness, Liberalism, etc. Everything these fucking people didn't or don't like is ever and always "Communism."

These fucking people want to party like it's 1959, forever.

But it's 2020. We gotta cut this shit out yo, and for our own damned good.

Because if we don't this bullshit is going to destroy us.

Part Four.

Part Five.

If I don't know anything I can believe what I want! (My American Dark Age, Part Four)

Welcome to Carl's Jr. Would you like to try our EXTRA BIG ASS TACO? Now with more MOLECULES! ~Carl's Jr. Computer, Idiocracy.

Over the weekend, Matt Gaetz (R-Natty Lite) Tweeted this; "Black Lives Matter is a Marxist movement."

Really? Seriously?! Are you fucking kidding me?!

As I understand it, Black Lives Matter doesn't actually endorse any particular economic system other than, ya know, one that doesn't hurt or kill Black people as a central part of its existence.

Meanwhile, while American conservatism goes down the rabbit hole of deploying armed officers to protect Confederate statues and ignores Russian bounties on American military personnel being paid to the Taliban by the Russian GRU and the literal murders of American citizens by American police officers in favor of trying to settle ideological grievances that are currently older than most people now living...authoritarianism and evil remain on the march across much of the world.

And thanks to their destruction of America's moral authority, soft power and indeed, reputation for anything much at all including basic competence...and after the deaths of almost 130,000 Americans thanks to COVID-19 and our government's schizophrenic responses to it...we have all but guaranteed that there will be a hundred thousand or more American deaths and countless others throughout the world when the only option we have left to even start trying to put things right is force and assorted other hard-power methods.

This morning, I saw this, that US Customs intercepted 13 tons of human hair taken from the prisoners of Uyghur concentration camps in Xinjiang.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump fiddles while the world burns and Republicans...thus far frustrated by our own Federal system and prevented from their goals by our own Constitution...dream of finding some way to arrest people simply for having opposing political viewpoints.

Kind of like what the goddamned Chinese Communists want to do in Hong Kong, eh?

And...the bellicose Tweets of Marsha Blackburn and Mike Pompeo aside, Republicans and the wealthy have borrowed so much money from, and outsourced so much of our manufacturing to the Chinese that short of a nuclear-backed canceling of contracts and refusal to pay until these fucking bastards stop detaining and murdering their own citizens for no damned good reason and start respecting human rights...what in the hell can we actually do?

Ordinarily, we'd get most of the rest of the world behind us and collectively tell these fucking people what to go do with themselves, and likely extract some concessions simply because in economic terms China needs the rest of the world a lot more than we need them.

But America lacks the moral standing to do that right now, and at least until Trump is gone, likely lacks the political will to actually do anything, either.

In point of fact, for all of Matt Gaetz's and the Trump administration's bellicose 30-years-too-late anti-Communism, American corporate fascism is all too eager to give these fucking people its money in exchange for cheap crap that they then turn around and sell to the American consumer for way the hell more than they paid for it.

In point of fact, it's not Donald Trump and his trade wars that have made American corporations start thinking about onshoring rather than offshoring jobs...and likely using automation rather than human labor to do so...it's Coronavirus and the simple fact of mass disruption to global supply chains that resulted from it.

And once those factories are built, they won't need more than a few people to run them, and maybe a janitor or two.

But, I mean, that's Okay isn't it? After all, conservative groups like the Club For Growth seem to be primarily working on resolving their staffers' dick-size issues. It's not like we're dealing with any important stuff like deadly viruses or economic crises or anything.

And speaking of economics...

America and other countries have, fundamentally, paid the goddamned Chinese Communists trillions of dollars over the last generation or so...that they have been putting a lot of into military hardware and building alliances and infrastructure and webs of capital and influence throughout the world, especially in places we tend to overlook like Sub-Saharan Africa.

If we get into a conflict with the Chinese it doesn't really matter that they don't have the kind of intercontinental strike capability that we or the Russians or NATO (collectively) have if they have bases in (for example) Cabo Verde or Venezuela and can hit our East or Gulf Coasts from there in addition to being able to target Alaska, Hawaii and the West Coast with their own weapons based on their own soil...and the difference between China and Russia in this regard is that China didn't shed 65% of its military capabilities after the Cold War nor suffer through a long period of few upgrades and little or no new equipment. In fact, their capabilities have only grown, and largely without much of a per-capita increase in defense spending because their population is so large.

And let's not forget the still-ongoing standoff between China and India over a few square Kilometers of land in some remote Himalayan river valley, either. Another situation we'd normally be working to resolve under any kind of a sane administration...or even if Donald Trump simply made any kind of effort to be the leader or the man he says he is.

Simply put, tens of millions of Americans lack even the kind of basic familiarity with world affairs that I just described...much of which could be gained simply from a quick Twitter browse...but they can spout volumes of data, real and imagined, about their favorite conspiracy theories and other pet issues. Simply put, if you don't know anything, you can believe whatever you want.

And "Conservatives" meanwhile, the very people who at one time were the go-to motherfuckers for navigating thorny problems like "How do we win the Cold War" are posting shit like this...a "Youth Patriotism Index" that seems intended solely to disparage higher education, even though said higher education often takes the place of effective secondary education which in all too many places focuses mainly on sports and below-board political and social indoctrination, to the point where a high school student or graduate could have trouble passing the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) a fucking decade ago. I can only imagine what it's like these days. But, you know, in a way this is problematic in it's own right.

Honestly, so far as I'm concerned I say that the idea that there even is such a thing as a "Youth Patriotism Index" in this country...official or otherwise...sounds pretty goddamned Communist to me. Note that I say this as a former conservative and Republican. If you'd have told me 30 years ago that some supposedly-conservative group would produce such a thing I'd have laughed at you.

But as of right now, too many of us are cheerfully trying to defend apathy, ignorance and nihilism or aiming weapons at each other (deliberately or negligently) or deliberately trying to believe, against all the evidence, that we are each, individually, somehow the protagonist of reality.

It might be that now, enough of us are observing the basic duty of paying attention to what's going on in the world around us. In fact, I'd say that's probably where we're at right now.

Call it just over half, maybe, have actually decided they care enough about life and living to pay attention enough to protect themselves.

But there's about a third or so that don't...or that have actively thrown in their lot with the bad guys. Then there's a high-teens percentile that look at whoever's around and say "Whatever you think."

You can argue the exact numbers all day, but the point is that's a problem.

Apathetic neutrality doesn't seem like much of an option in a world where both Communists and Nazis are looking for a resurgence, and both have and are persecuting other people.

Yes, this is America and you can believe whatever you want.

But that doesn't make it true, and nobody that doesn't want to listen to that crap actually has to.

Does that spell it out for you?

Part Three.

Part Five.

The Demon-Haunted World (My American Dark Age, Part Three.)

March, march to my own drum
March, march to my own drum
Hey, hey, I'm an army of one
Oh, I'm an army of one
March, march to my own drum
March, march to my own drum
Hey, hey, I'm an army of one
Oh, I'm an army of one.
~The Chicks, March March (From the upcoming album, Gaslighter.)

I keep seeing this. Pictures and videos of some dumb ass wealthy St. Louis couple that clearly don't know how to use their weapons, pointing them at peaceful protesters who were simply walking by their gaudy mansion on their way to demonstrate in front of the mayor's house.

Let's look at this seriously.

#1 Neither one of these fools is even holding their goddamned weapon properly, fire a rifle like that and you'll likely burn your hand, for one thing. Also, holding a pistol in the same diffident, disgusted manner that one might hold a recently filled dog-poop bag is probably not a good idea if you plan on firing it, and having your finger inside the trigger guard is a straight up violation of basic firearms safety. Also, neither one of these idiots has their eyes on where the muzzle of the weapon is aimed, and at multiple points in the assorted videos I've seen these fucking idiots keep pointing their weapons at each other.

#2 Basic rules as I was taught them, when I was a kid, before I had even the slightest bit of professional training: Always treat every weapon as if it is loaded and do not load it or chamber a round until you have to. Do not ever point a weapon at another person or have your finger on the trigger unless you intend to shoot. Always know what is downrange in the direction the weapon is aimed.

#3 These people were armed with weapons they do not know how to use, and were reacting with pants-pissing fear to unarmed peaceful protesters who were on their way somewhere else.

And then these fucking idiots managed to draw the attention of the entire country, by being fucking idiots.

And Matt Gaetz (R-Natty Lite) says "This is all of us?"

No bitch, it ain't, not by a long shot, it ain't. I might also be a middle-aged fat guy, but I'm not afraid of other people, and peaceful protesters don't bother me and hell, I'll gladly accept somebody who has even a totally opposite viewpoint from me if they aren't racist, believe in peace, and don't want to hurt people. Other ideas don't scare me. Also, I well remember that I was taught how to use a rifle, a few times including by actual professionals, and this ain't it. Not by a long shot, it ain't.

And Jesse Kelly calls peaceful protesters who simply want the police to stop killing Black people "rioters" and "zoo animals?" Speaking of other things that would've got me shit-canned from more than one job that I've had in this life...

It's becoming hard to not believe that conservatism is racism, and racism is conservatism. It wasn't always like that, but These Fucking People have kicked everybody else out.

Therefore, if only by default, the fucking racists became the ones who defined the philosophy. I don't like this, but it is what it is. I hung on for as long as I could trying for some other result, for all the good it did.

What the hell kind of small-ass demon-haunted world do you have to live in to be this scared of unarmed people who would have just kept walking if you hadn't come out and made an ass of yourself? And just how in the actual fuck do Matt Gaetz (R-Wild Irish Rose) and Jesse Kelly (of "Scalp the liberals before they kill me" wank-fest infamy) each manage to pack so goddamned many racist stereotypes into one fucking Tweet? I mean, I'm old enough to remember when talking like that would get my ass beat and my hide tanned and stretched out on the side of the shed. Hell, I got told "You say that again and you won't be able to sit down for a week" for far less, and I was raised conservative. But when I was coming up, racist talk was considered wrong and snide remarks might get you beat up, so what the fuck do I know?

But then, as certain friends of mine constantly point out, I look at things with some degree of logic.

So, I guess we live in one where yet another Youtube racist got suspended because he's a Youtube Racist and Stefan has a sad because his "Philosophy discussion" came to a crashing end BECAUSE HE'S A FUCKING RACIST. Now Scott Adams AKA Nazi Dilbert Guy who never met a bit of woo woo bullshit he didn't like is claiming that he got fired from not one, but two jobs for being white. And how does that work, exactly, given that...well I'm honestly not sure that Scott Adams has ever had a real job?

Meanwhile actual cops Nazis manage to be even more pathetic. Elijah McClain, a black teenager, was killed for (apparently) no damned good reason by the Aurora Police Department, and these violin-playing kids decided to hold a vigil or something...because Elijah was a violinist or whatever...and the police department sent riot police to break up the protest, also for no goddamned good reason.

Seriously what in the hell kind of a candy ass fearful shit do you have to be, to be afraid of a bunch of kids who are playing their violins in the park? Perhaps the kinds of fearful shits who end up getting fired when they get caught hankering for a race war on live audio?

(And then these same racist sons of bitches wonder why people think police departments need to be reformed, their budgets need to be cut, and something about their training needs to be seriously changed?)

At this point, if you're not seeing that some changes to both conservative politics and policing need to be made and that racism ought to be driven from the public square, with anyone who advocates for it wearing a nice new coat of tar and feathers,  then you're part of the fucking problem.

These people's pointless, pants-shitting fear of goddamned near everything is going to get a lot of people killed, hell, it already has. The same fucking people who until a few months ago were banging on endlessly about the Sanctity Of Life are pretty much ready to kill millions if it means they won't have to look at Black people or wear a mask to protect themselves from a deadly virus and they're willing to throw away their own freedom and bow down before a police state that demands nothing less than cowering conformity and submission so long as they get to keep their privilege and racism.

They fear the demons in their own heads, which are of their own creation, so much that they would plunge our society into chaos, destruction and war. They'd rather have explosions in the distance every night, the scream of different kinds of jet engines overhead and mass reports of combat casualties and war crimes. Anything is better than having to face what they actually are, and change even a little.

And given the chance, knowing that as King said, a riot is the language of the unheard, they are desperate to go right on unhearing and go back to sleep, and sleep right through it all until the tanks crash through the White House fence and whatever form of government these fucking people installed is told by people with bigger guns that its power has crumbled and they've nothing left to turn over.

These fucking people automatically assume that if other people have basic Constitutional rights and human freedom and rights, including a right to express yourself, or to not get shot, that it will somehow automatically mean their own deaths, even though they've said that about every single moment of cultural or social change that has ever happened and that's always what these fucking fools have been afraid of and it never works out that way in real life.

But ya know, when you want to murder people just because they're telling you not to kill them, you just might be the fucking demon, delusions in your own head aside, and you might just have never deserved the power this country gave you in the first goddamned place, because you're a piece of fucking shit. If your belief system is founded on the fact that you must have somebody else to oppress, then fuck you. You don't just deserve not to have power, you deserve to be ripped from your power and privilege and forced to have to see how the rest of the world lives and what people have to go through so that you can have your big house and your money and those guns you don't know how to use. And if that inconveniences you, or makes you uncomfortable, too fucking bad.

If you'd point guns at peaceful people just to keep the scales over your own eyes, if you would kill people to save a dime, or to not have to face that you're that kind of sociopath, then fuck you.

You don't deserve to have power or dictate anything to anybody and you deserve to bear the full burden of the judgment that history will give you.

Lunatic dreams create a nightmare reality for the sane.

Part Two.

Part Four.

Words We Say To God (My American Dark Age, Part Two.)

(As per regulation, some shit is about to go down. If you can't deal with that, here's a picture of some ferrets, move along.)

“When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water (he cups his hands) and if he opens his fingers then, he needn't hope to find himself again. ~Thomas More, as depicted by Robert Bolt in A Man For All Seasons.

I lost somebody today. His name was Blizzard. He was an elderly rescue ferret, found in a box outside the local pet store during a snowstorm in January of 2019. Hence the name. He's the white ferret on the bottom of the pile in the header photo.
I did the best I could to give him a good life for the last year and a half. But for me to be in a position to do that, somebody else...didn't.

I don't know what Blizzard's 'real' name was, how old he was beyond a range of four to six years that the vet game me from looking at his teeth, and that from his condition on the day he came into my life, that he'd been fed some pretty crappy food.

His passing was not unexpected, but is sad, just the same.

I was taught that when you take on a pet, you're in it for life, theirs or yours. You have to be there all the way to the end, and so it was this morning.

That said, because of dealing with Blizzard's sudden turn for the worse yesterday I wasn't in any shape to write.

I've been slowly trying to get my thoughts together about the news that Russian military intelligence is paying the Taliban bounties for American troops that they kill and...then we find out that Trump and the Republicans knew this three months ago and didn't do shit about it, except to try and weasel Russia right back into the G7.

If I have to explain to you the volcanic level of rage that's been building up, you'll never fucking understand it. And I shouldn't have to. If you're an American, you should get this. Some things should not need to be said.

For myself, I'm a former conservative Republican, I'm a veteran. I served in the United States Air Force.

Integrity Above All.
Service Before Self.
Excellence In All That We Do.

Duty, Honor, Country, have to be more than just words.

If you take that oath to be a member of the United States Armed Forces, an Elected Official, or a Federal employee...you have given your word to uphold the Constitution and defend something greater than yourself. You have created a Law Of The Universe that only applies to you. As Robert Bolt wrote and Stephen Colbert famously quoted "When a man takes an oath, he's holding his own self in his own hands, like water..."

One of my bros died in Afghanistan in 2003, another came back with severe PTSD and would commit suicide in 2010 because of that and other issues. Yet another was wounded in Iraq in 2005 and became permanently disabled when the vehicle he was driving hit an IED. He lost the use of his right arm and would ultimately lose hearing in his right ear.

I'm asking you, as an American;

What are our lives worth?

What are our lives worth to our country, that it will not stand up against those who would put a monetary value on our lives and mark us as targets for simple murder for hire in spite of decency, honor, and the fucking rules of war?

You ever get the vibe that Republicans want to leave the rest of America in a box in a parking lot somewhere with a sign on us that says "Free to good home?"

In the last few months as crises pile up and their poll numbers tank and more and more people end up hating Trump...Republicans have made it crystal clear that they regard nearly everybody else in America as an enemy to be either destroyed or subjugated. From killing Grandma to restart the economy during the lock-down, to the George Floyd murder, to cops shooting at reporters, conservatives and Republicans have made it plain that either through action or inaction, they wish to destroy any aspect or institution of America that won't bend the knee...and by bend the knee I mean completely subjugate itself to the will of Donald Trump and to the constantly-shifting dogmas of modern Republicanism that flow from him to the point where any thought of anything else is considered treason. In effect, the Party wishes you to disregard the evidence of your eyes and ears as their first and most essential command.

And they're not afraid to throw the military under the bus, either.

You know how long I had to deal with constant "Support The Troops" jingoism that only got worse the less Republican or supportive of wars and shit that I got? Then there's the "Thank you for your Service" bullshit, not because the person saying it genuinely had anything invested, or really gave a shit, but because the second they saw my hat, or the ratty old BDU jacket that still has my name on it and the rank insignia of a Senior Airman on the shoulders, or one of several ratty old T-shirts, or whatever...I ceased to be a person and became simply a totem before which that was the proper offering. Fuck this stupid bullshit.

You know what I want? A government that treats its own citizens, all of them, like human beings and doesn't throw the troops or veterans under the bus because the current President has a massive man-crush on a dictator and likes the idea of being the bottom bitch.

But yet, at the same time as Trump and the Republicans want to take it from any dictator that'll give it to them, they want to punch down on just about every other American who is not massively wealthy or famous simply for being famous, and they are endlessly pissed that there is resistance to this most-shitty of ideas. They seem to think that everybody else should suffer in silence for the greater glory of Donald Trump and #MAGA and not even get to have an opinion about that. All other thought besides the Party's thought is treason.

There comes a point where you have to stand up. There comes a point where there is no living with or any more trying to reason with people who don't think you have a right to exist. We are fast approaching that point, where each of us will have to decide between America or Trump, and Republicanism or the Republic itself...and among other things we're going to have to vote accordingly, and probably even fight, to protect our own lives.

Because if we don't, these people would gladly tear America apart and kill millions of people, abandoning the rest of us like a ferret left in a box to die in the cold.

They're going to try it anyway, but they will be less successful if we all stand together. Maybe at this point "less successful" and a long grind of dealing with this problem is the best we're going to get.

But we still have to do it.

There comes a point where we have to stand up against all enemies foreign and domestic if we wish to remain a free people. If you don't think God, or history, or the Universe or whatever will judge you for what you do in this time...you might be part of the problem.

Just remember if they'll sell out the military, they'll sure as hell sell you out.

I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution Of The United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, So help me God.

~United States Armed Forces oath of enlistment.

And note that this oath is quite similar to the one taken by elected officials.

We're either a nation of laws, or we're not. We either believe in the things we say we do, or we don't.

This isn't hard.

Part One.

Part Three.

Also, Read This.

What is an oath then but words we say to God? ~Thomas More.