Days of Wine and Roses

Art Pope is having a ball in North Carolina. Who knew you could buy a state. You could see it coming, though. For a few decades things that were once named for worthy citizens or communities or anything other than living, wealthy individuals have been named for money.

Schools, arenas, you name it. Why not a state? Call it Roses or ThriftWorld or something, in honor of Pope. I like ThriftWorld. The whole School of Public Health at UNC was named for a rich guy. Let's get it over with and rename the state instead of chipping away at it piecemeal. 

The Popists also fired the president of UNC and decommissioned the poverty center in a throwback to the days of segregation. There's no practical point to it. It's a primal display of power and an insult to their opponents. The most telling expression of power is the ability to be arbitrary. 

So they're being arbitrary. You can see why the righties want guns, ones that are designed to kill people efficiently: to make sure the dispossessed can't fight back effectively. This is the old way. Different groups play by different sets of rules. It's not the rule of law but the law of the jungle.

Pope and his pals drink the intoxicating wine of racism and live in fear because they grow soft while the oppressed grow strong. The adversity produces strength no matter how much they try to ensure weakness. The dispossessed must be cowed. It's the only way they can be kept down.

That and being incarcerated. But Pope's day will come. He will reap what he has sown. The seeds of discord will eventually return home, to the fatass white boys who enforce oppression through their surrogates, henchmen and mercenaries. The racism is utterly real, not a tactic or a ruse.

Though they are too cowardly to fight their own battles the racism is inseparable from their being. They will die racists. Church-going racists. Self-righteous racists. Bible-quoting racists. Constitution-citing racists. Anonymous racists, in that they will deny it forever. It's their addiction.