They are NOT Neutral

There's something about neutrality that weirds Republicans out. They believe in polarity, partisanship, and blackness and whiteness. They are against ambiguity and uncertainty and ambivalence. I guess it keeps them up at night if they feel that neutrality is on the rise, or anything other than the clear delineation of sides.

They toss and turn in their beds if there's an uncertain moon arising. They are DC. Keep that alternating shit away from them. It sounds kind of bisexual to them, I suppose, but the world is full of it, all kinds of ambiguity and uncertainty. It seems to be the norm, at least wherever there's stability. Are they unstable, our conservative friends?

I think not. They're not unstable but destabilizing. They have opted for certainty in an uncertain world to reassure themselves but it's not reality and what do they care. They care only about themselves. The rest of us can take a flying fajita, if I got that term right. The instability is all ours. It's their gift to us.

Rising Tide

How did we get to be the old world? America feels old to me now and Europe feels young. Even the screwed-up places in Europe and Asia and Africa feel young in comparison with us.

I guess that's what we get for taking on the role of world parent. Am I wrong or didn't we do that voluntarily? So at least we should set a good example for the young ones, you know.

But now they all want to be like us, to consume stuff like there's no tomorrow, which, if we keep it up, will mean there really won't be a tomorrow. Food for thought, you would think.

Not, of course, if you're Republican. They are against it. Thinking, I mean. They believe in belief, which sounds circular and ingrown and somehow incestuous, an idea involved with itself.

It's time for resolutions, as of today. A new year is upon us. Let's just resolve to do better, as a country. Lose weight, stop drinking and so on. Be kinder and gentler and maybe points of light.

All of that rings kind of familiar. I wonder who came up with it. I wouldn't want to unwittingly steal somebody's stuff. I could be sued for plagiarism. I know I didn't come up with "rising tide."

But I keep hearing those words in my head in relation to global warming. Was that the context, maybe, because the tide is rising on us all. Circumstances are changing. We should adapt, I suppose.

There are fireworks planned for tonight. I'll mull it all over while I'm enjoying that. I don't want to overreact out of urgency or anything. There's always tomorrow. There is, isn't there?

Sons of Ham

It's time the American people take a harder look at Billy Graham's empire, and an empire it is, what with its size, means of subsistence, internationalism, paternalism, nepotism and adherence to primogeniture, as evidenced in the passing on of the organization to the founder's unworthy son, Franklin Graham.

For all those who have seen poshness portrayed in film the way of life of the Graham family is instantly recognizable as a throwback to the days of empire and nobility, no one in the family having made an honest living since the birth of Billy. They are also, as revealed privately, firmly rooted in traditions of bigotry and exploitation.

The innovation of Billy Graham was not in religious purity or piety or even simple discipline, but in marketing. He is all about ambition, which he would have us believe is ambition on behalf of Christ, but, since Billy and Jesus are indistinct in his own mind, the argument is specious. The family's incredible wealth betrays them.

As with so many of these new-age, reactionary, retrograde people who call themselves Christians, their secret dealings show the truth. Billy's taped antisemitic outbursts and his behind the scenes battles against Catholicism reveal the inner workings of his soul and indicate who is in charge there. It certainly isn't Jesus.

The most fundamental aspect of Christianity, the sine qua nothing, is that you must live for something outside of yourself, firstly Jesus. The rest follows from there, and is effortless once your soul is transformed by Jesus, though it may look odd to an outsider, since you are no longer selfish, grasping, greedy and mean.

The hallmark is humility. Contrast this with the Grahams. These crackers live like kings and carry on with it into the fourth generation, but it goes back even beyond Billy when you consider his true father-in-Christ, Mordecai Ham, a renowned bigot. A big-shot bigot -- he was not obscure -- so you can look him up. Please do so now.

All will be clear. It was with Mordecai's guidance that Billy found Christ, under Southern Baptist auspices, that great group which renounced slavery as early as 1995, for the sake of appearances. Billy's ambition, addiction to power and striving for nobility are also most tellingly revealed in his glomming on to US presidents.

He loves that stuff. The son, Franklin, shows how a noble class degenerates quickly due to insularity and inbreeding, an inbreeding of pernicious and unchristian beliefs in the case of the Grahams. Many traits alternate generations, I've been told, and you can see this in Franklin, who is so obviously a son of Ham.

As he demonstrates daily in his outpourings of ignorance. Franklin, if you read this, take the first step in repentance, lop off the offending hand, and you know what it is, your weakness. Sell all you have and give it to the poor. Blows your mind, I bet, to consider it. Maybe Jesus meant it, when he said as much.

Boom and Bust

The best way to understand the right-wing, Republican social and economic model is by observing predator-prey relationships in nature. Republican deregulatory policy results in boom and bust cycles due to over-harvesting and irresponsible exploitation of resources, human or otherwise.

by

Over-harvesting by Republicans, that is, of any available prey or surplus. Republicans are represented by the coyote in the bottom of the graph above. The rabbit represents the prey, obviously, but more importantly also illustrates that power disparities are crucial to the functioning of the system. 

Picture the rabbit with an Uzi in its grip and everything changes, which is why Republicans seek to consolidate power in their own hands while disenfranchising everyone else. They don't want fair play but easy prey. This is also why they want to have all the guns and drill through to China for oil.

It's all about power. So they insist on drilling the hell out of our own territory in the frantic search for more petroleum even though it's money in the bank, our bank, the bank that includes rabbits as clients, so there's the problem. The Republicans want it all, fearing the rabbits might fight back.

Once this is understood many things become clear. Why the Republicans pick on children, the elderly and the poor, for example. Why they send poorer, younger Americans off to fight in wars that don't make sense unless you have Halliburton stock. Why they sabotage and cripple the social safety net.

And it makes you wonder about their opposition to birth control. More prey? That would be primal indeed. Now I head off to work for my wages, in this Christmas season. You know someone told me, the other day, that there's a bounty on coyotes where I live. I wonder if that applies to Republicans.

Eve, Honey...

There are always unholy alliances on the road to minority rule. It's one of the reasons right thinking people go for democracy, because it's presumably not rooted in domination and exploitation, internally, as minority rule usually is which makes it immoral and unstable. And it makes sense that people would only give up their franchise by force or by the foolishness of taking it for granted.

Which, I think, is closely related to original sin, Eve having failed to realize how incredibly fucking lucky she was, probably while Adam was engaged in the Garden of Eden's equivalent of watching football on TV. Now I'm super curious to see how the Republican unholy alliance will play out, which should be interesting because they have redefined crazy to such a degree. They're off the charts.

Unholy alliances are an easy form of interference leading to illegitimate government in comparison with, let's say, a coup. Illegitimacy is what minority rule usually gives you though it's unavoidable in the face of extreme factionalism. Only a plurality is possible then, anyway, and it's more likely that the resulting government will be illegitimate. Alliances are unholy by definition when they're reductive.

When the town isn't big enough for both or all of the factions, for example, and when their militancy and self-righteousness rule out compromise. Does the name Ted Cruz come to mind? So the current Republican coalition is an affront not just to our democracy but to civilization in general. They are discontented with that. The coalition is unholy as hell and bent on destruction, the annihilation of everything.

They are against the basic mechanisms underlying civilization, the giving up of some power for the greater, long-term good. The Cruz crowd doesn't believe in it, the greater good and the long term. The long term is annihilation for them because they are religious fanatics. It's the Apocalypse. And there is no "greater good" in the land of the elect, so any appearance of legitimacy is a smokescreen.

They are God's chosen people. Try to argue with that. It's outside the realm of argument. It's experiential and exclusive and insane. Think on that and try to comprehend it because they're coming after us, the heathen and the non-elect, meaning Democrats and other unworthies. And their greatest ally is our complacency, the complacency of the majority, and this is a hard thing to grasp.

Because none of it makes any sense, that we should have to worry, being the majority and not insane but I'm working on understanding it sitting here on the sofa. Meanwhile, there's football to watch and Eve, honey, will you pass me another cold one?

Aloha, Obama

For Immediate Release: The American President, Barack Obama, is vacationing again in Hawaii, where it is said that he continues to look for his balls, having left them there in adolescence. They are not exactly coconuts, by all reports, and have proved to be hard to find. May you finally find them, sir.

It's too late to do the country any good, but maybe you will write a book on your epic failure with what you learn after reacquaintance with your manhood. Or, if your nuts continue to elude you, testosterone injections may be the thing, coupled with assertiveness training. I'm curious, though.

Why did you ever run for president? You have been a disgrace.

The Discreet Harm of the Bourgeoisie

I'm not against specialization, and I'm a fan of a well-differentiated society, one that looks like an ecosystem, but in the case of humanity it's important for people to realize that they are part of a system or they can engage in all kinds of antisocial behavior by accident, out of ignorance. Probably willed ignorance, but, whatever. The ignorance doesn't mean it doesn't count.

It's not a fucking video game. People can get hurt. A classic example is that of pacifist meat-eaters. You are killing cows by proxy, you want to say to them, you have a responsibility to ensure that it's done humanely, which is to say nothing of the killing of humans. People have to own even that or simply stop doing it. Now there's an idea. And torture, of course, soul-slaughter.

But they're immersed in ennui, the perpetrators--insulated, numbed. As people so often do they double down on a mistake, thinking they haven't done enough of the thing they shouldn't have done in the first place. And as they invest more in the mistake it becomes harder to own it and reverse direction, to the extent, sometimes, that it can only end in death, their own deaths.

The realization of the mistake and the wrong they've done is more than they can handle. They are not actors and autonomous entities but addicts, so it only ends in death and dehumanization or in the ditch. And it can happen to a whole society, evidently. Here's the point, it has happened to us. We think if we consume more it will make us happy and it never will. No way, white people.

There's nothing wrong with it, consumerism per se, I don't think, if it works in the system as a whole and doesn't throw it out of balance, but we're way beyond that. Way beyond. Beyond beyond, probably already in the ditch but we don't know it yet, the denial of the addiction is so strong. What's the solution? I don't know. I think individuals can change but a whole society?

That's a big boat. Remember, though, the talk Franklin Roosevelt gave which kept people from succumbing to panic and saved the banks? It makes you wonder. If the right person said the right things maybe we could escape the fear, the fear that if we give up the quest for more shit we'll be lost. We won't be lost. In fact we may find ourselves again. At least we might stop torturing people.

That would be good. I wonder if Dick Cheney believes in the existence of souls?

Rubes

America has become a Rube Goldberg machine. I love his stuff but he was also an engineer and the machines were an amusement and counterpoint to the engineering. My God, people, doing things in inconceivably inefficient ways is not actually good! I have to believe our current American political contraption is the equivalent of throwing virgins into the mouth of a volcano. 

Inefficiency as an offering to the gods of capitalism, at the cost of more than a few virgins. Maybe we should go with the virgins. It would mean fewer lives lost, by a lot, than what we are doing now, plundering the world, though I understand that some people find virgin-burning distasteful. Now I'm concerned, since I brought it up, that Republicans will want to add virgin-burning to planet-plundering.

They're so opportunistic and susceptible to suggestion. I'm sorry I ever mentioned it. Someone delete this post. Who has the keys to this thing?  Oh, darn.

  Dolores on the Road to the Volcano:

Hiccups

I'm so confident that guys like Dick Cheney will eventually be seen as hiccups in history, but I'm pushing for regurgitation. Throw-up. Right now. ASAP.

There was so much confidence after World War II that the world had functioned as it should while doing not that. That civilization had rejected the poison.

But tell that to the Jews. Better yet tell that to them as it was going on. It all worked out? The good guys won? It never should have fucking happened period.

Just as Dick Cheney should never have happened. He's an affront to the very idea of decency, and the existence of accountability and hope for humanity.

I give up. Whatever he is, I am not. He says he's a capitalist, a lover of freedom and democracy? Okay, I'm a fucking commie. A Marxist. Call me comrade.

Anything other than him. Join with me wherever you see this sign:

Selectively Weak Stomachs

All those FOX NEWS people consistently amaze me, they get so upset about the most trivial things. No humans were harmed, I say to them, in whatever it is they're ranting on about, like the war on Christmas or declining moral standards.

But they don't seem to care at all about the young Americans they sent off to get busted up or killed in their pet nation-building projects in the Middle East, or the millions of people whose lives were ruined by their bankrupt economic theories.

They have funny stomachs, for sure. It must have to do with their insulated lives and weighty salaries, so I recommend that they spend some volunteer time taking care of those veterans, or the homeless, or the disabled and mentally ill.

Other people do it and without any lasting ill-effect. Maybe, then, they will think a little about their beloved tax cuts, for the rich of course, in relation to the social services they so despise. Their mantra should be "more Santa, less Scrooge."

At least for the duration of the holiday season. It's all I dare hope for.

Experts at Assertions

With the release of the torture report Republicans are crawling out of the crevices to defend it. Torture, that is, and defender commander Dick Cheney is out in front, their expert as always in assertions which can't be proven wrong. If they ever teach a course on the difference between intelligence and cunning they only need to look to Dick.

Maybe he'll come to the class and explain it, if he can, or they can just study him in action. He's the master of deception and mischaracterization, ambiguity and dissimulation, but not miscalculation. He's shrewd as shit. A little poking and prodding would be interesting, as well, as we study the guy, now that I think of it. They say he has a tough hide.

So let's enhance that. Waterboard him. Force feed his ass. And I mean his ass. See how he likes it. Hang him from something, from somewhere. I like the sound of this. Think of what we might learn and not just about the mechanisms of depravity. He might actually tell us stuff. He says this shit works, the torture. And there are those nagging questions.

Hanging about as to the legality and constitutional compliance of half of what he did, to say nothing of the morality. So we can dig in on those assertions of his, all that annoyingly unprovable stuff, that he kept America from further harm, for example, and that 9/11 necessitated militarization and the creation of a huge new security apparatus.

As did that Reichstag fire, once. The Twin Towers calamity was not a calamity for Republicans. It enabled the realization of their fantasies of war and militarization and the consolidation of power and so on. It's the best thing that ever happened to Dick Cheney. How else could he have gone so far in turning America into a police state.

They Shoot Niggers, Don't They?

For the white people in the dance marathon of life, trying to keep going while knowing that the minute they stop they'll face the increasingly unpleasant reality of mortality, nigger-shooting can only be understood as a death wish, a perverted form of envy, reflecting white folk's desire for a simpler life such as they enjoy who are unafflicted with the white man's burden, the deaths of whom mean nothing, or at least not much. The burden of being a higher echelon of humanity, that is, weighs heavily on white people.

They have miles to go before they can sleep. The lives of black folk are envied because they are more immersed in the natural world, a subspecies of humanity closer to our collective roots, unaware of the cares of their more intelligent and evolved cousins. But white people don't understand that the ennui is all their own. It's probably mistaken association. To the extent that black people are different, as a class, they feel everything more. Maybe it's not mistaken or white people just don't give a shit to too great an extent.

Actually I think it's envy, purely and simply, black people being seen as nearer to the condition of humanity before the fall from grace. So black people are a standing insult to white people, since they are in some way closer to God, a standing insult in the same way Jews are to Christians because the Jews have a claim on Jesus the Christians can't have and so are killed with all kinds of invented justifications. This is so fucked up, though I wouldn't dispute that there are people closer to God than white people.

Godliness being associated with less in the way of worldly power, it seems, because all power is God's by right and can only be properly employed in the furtherance of His ends, which didn't include killing black people the last time I checked. White people just can't see black people as they are, both more and less like them at the same time, and so shoot them out of misunderstanding and fear. They are still, sadly, Puritans burning witches, the witches bearing the burden of their own unacknowledged darkness.

Grover at Burning Man

NIXON IN CHINA opened my eyes. Opera can be about current events. I'm now working on an exciting, new opera of my own, GROVER AT BURNING MAN. What pathos there will be, what weightiness and momentum, what utter inertia and ennui! It'll put the sturm in your drang. Evidently Grover really liked Burning Man. Ahhh, the spectacle.

I assume he actually went. Republicans are so quick to don fatigues for the photographs when it comes to the military stuff while some kid from Idaho, who joined the military because there weren't any jobs because the Republicans sent the jobs to China, gets his ass blown off defending Grover's freedom, but I digress. 

It's a good thing Grover liked Burning Man. You don't want to be on his bathtub list. And what's not to like, as Burning Man so perfectly embodies the aspirations of Republicans of Grover's type, to remain an adolescent forever--the eternal frat boy, living on the family's money with bluster and bravado, totally arrested. 

And challenging authority at every opportunity while embracing the delusion that they aren't implicated in anything. Will Junior ever reach escape velocity, the parents wonder, and grow up, finally, for the love of God, and quit sucking up resources like there's no tomorrow. And treating women like crap, as well. What greater freedom is there? 

All the benefits and none of the responsibilities. You just get born into it and it's one big ski vacation after that. Look at the presidential candidates these guys cough up, showcasing affirmative action in full flower. It's legacy land. You can see how Obama and Clinton would drive them nuts, since they actually did get there on their own merits.

Since they started out without the advantages of the country club crowd. They are usurpers, faux fathers, in the eyes of the Norquisters, who are still very much in touch with their fathers. It's where the checks come from. Or "daddiness," existentially, as it works out, there being some source of subsistence flowing out of Wichita or wherever.

Truly, they have made an art of living with access to tons of resources while not contributing anything. What has Grover ever done for anyone besides himself? An entire life sucking off the system he says he hates. Is it any wonder these guys are prickly and overly defensive? And crazy nuts about their opponents who did escape puberty.

The important thing is to maintain the privilege, by whatever means they can, while keeping the opposition on their heels by accusing them of all the stuff they're doing themselves, as they insist that they are the most independent and productive guys ever. Just like Grover, whose life in politics belies his avowed hatred of government.

What would he do without it? It's his sustenance. The Republicans refuse to cooperate with any legitimately elected official they don't like, meaning every Democrat, thereby controlling everything, and then blame anybody but themselves for the results. Satanic, really, but shrewd operating procedure if you don't give a shit about anything.

Now I'm a fan of Burning Man but someone should clue Grover in. It's a fucking vacation. It's not a model for anything. It can only exist on resources from outside itself, just like Grover, but that is the model. Hell, the Groverites have even got it structured so they don't have to tell you where the money comes from. It's a secret.

I guess it's understandable, though. Grover's life has been one long vacation. They say Ronnie Reagan got the movies mixed up with real life. A working person wouldn't make this mistake. So with Grover. A working person can tell real life from a vacation, but Grover can't because his life has been one huge, College Republican suck-fest.

The simple test is to ask if a way of life would work if everyone embraced it. This takes you in the direction of Scandinavia. That wailing was a tenor practicing the Grover part on an important song in the opera addressing this conundrum, "THEY'RE ALL FUCKING COMMIES, BLONDE COMMIES, BLONDE COMMIES WITH HEALTH CARE."

The song actually rocks, though I know you can't tell it from the title. I will say, in Grover's defense, if it's a defense, that he makes one hell of a subject for opera. The self-importance alone gets you there. Picture him singing with his mouth wide open and head thrown back, completely the center of his own universe. A buffoon, of course, to those who know him. 

It may have to be a comic opera in the end, Falstaffian, but with a touch of Wagner for pathos.

 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/my-first-burning-man-grover-norquist

SAPS

Self Aggrandizing Pieces of Shit.

No, Virginia, There Isn't a Santa Claus

And you had better get over it now. There is no free lunch. No school lunch. Probably no health care and a crappy education ending early or in an insurmountable mountain of debt. The job market is sketchy so say your prayers, Virginia. You're just an Irish ragamuffin anyway, aren't you? You're probably screwed.

If there's one thing the Republicans worry about it's unworthy people getting free shit. Indiscriminate largess. I qualify that. Needy, unworthy people. It's the road to bad habits, sloth, and unending sucking off the state. That's the prerogative of corporations and the wealthy. My God, I see it now. It all began with Santa.

How could we have missed it? All those so-called "underprivileged" Americans imprinting on Santa, expecting free shit forever. Obviously a commie plot to undermine America and weaken its moral fiber. This is worse than fluoride, rotting our brains, having hoards of people stuck in a state of spoiled dependency forever.

So toughen up, Virginia, you little wastrel. Where are your parents? Working two jobs each just to keep food on the table? Good for them. Make sure you tell them the minimum wage isn't going anywhere, so they better knuckle down. You say your school sucks? Well, welcome to Pottersville.

The new Republican America. Screwers and screwees. Which do you want to be, Virginia? Wise up. Get a clue. It's all about competition. For your sorry-ass class, anyway. The rich, now, are in high cotton. Behold them with envy, and get over that Santa thing. The Republicans downsized his ass.

And the elves's jobs went to China and they ate the reindeer. Sorry, Virginia, I don't want to be mean, but you have to understand how the world works. Good luck to you, really. You'll need it. And Merry Christmas.

Insanity Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

All I want for Christmas is for the Republicans to say they're sorry. For Iraq and the deficits and Katrina and trashing the world economy and destroying the middle class and so on. And so on and so on. This is my letter to Santa.

But now there's no miracle on any street. Except maybe Wall Street. And watching the gloating of Mitch McConnell and John Boehner as they slobber all over themselves in anticipation of the gutting of our democracy is a lot to handle.

But great imagery for those holiday cards. Maureen O'Hara was not my type. Jimmy Stewart I can handle. But Eva Marie Saint? Oh, to be Cary Grant in NORTH BY NORTHWEST. To be Cary Grant in anything. Now I'm not overly sentimental.

And I'm not that susceptible to unrealistic holiday wishes. Give me suspense. A mystery. I like to figure things out and I have. The Republicans did it. They're the bad guys. Hell, it's Christmas and I just really want an apology from the Republicans.

For all the mayhem and misery they've caused. It's not a wonderful life, for far too many Americans, to say nothing of the Iraqis. Unnecessary suffering on all sides, and not enough caring. And the Republicans absconding with everything, all the while.

Santa, are you there?