All Politics Is Vocal

If you don't say it it doesn't exist. If you don't defend it it doesn't exist. And if you don't make it stick it doesn't exist. Get a fucking clue, Democrats. 

Go, and Sin Some More

Evangelicals are on a sinning rampage. And all the feedback seems to favor intensification. There are no internal mechanisms to contain it. What the fuck is wrong with these people? 

Trump Trophy Wife at Service

Trump is this huge blot on American history. He's worse than so many other bad things. I can't believe we have to somehow fit him into the narrative, and that it's not over yet, and that Melania, who seems to have been pretty on-board with her husband, was at Rosalynn Carter's service. It's all too weird. 

Staying Alive

I'm not a fan of the way natural selection is playing out among humans. We can evolve socially without dying but the traits we developed from the kind of selection that occurs over many generations through survival rates isn't playing out well. Traits like competitive obsessions and striving for dominance when the battle for resources has been won. Won to such an extent the only issue is distribution.

Well, there are other issues like how sustainable it is, the way we are living, but we don't give a shit. We should, but we can't even learn to share and, disconcertingly, the richest and luckiest country ever is going backwards. Because people with insane drives are still fighting like maniacs to have more. And to screw the little people who, they are afraid, will realize how they've been fucked and rise up. 

Natural selection favors staying alive. Reproduction at all costs. And, if being miserable doesn't factor into survival and reproduction, being miserable is fine as far as natural selection is concerned. Natural selection doesn't care at all about happiness. 

Man-Child Meltdown

Trump was always in meltdown mode. Because he's nuts. Fighting imaginary adversaries. But really, fighting knowing himself and how worthless he is. How incompetent he is. What a loser he is. 

So he's created that actuality -- of persecution and danger, because he believed in it. That he was a victim. And now he has something to worry about. Of his own creation. The real meltdown is at hand.

Judges with Grudges

Republicans knew how important judges were. So they took it over. The judiciary. Installing hack judges with nothing but a partisan mission. Scores to settle. Imaginary scores. But, never mind. Are we having fun yet?

Bedtime for Bozo

Well, boys and girls, I think we've established that a rich person can't be held responsible for anything in America. Did y'all see Trump's Thanksgiving message, filled as it was with gratitude and goodwill? And one judge and his assistant, who are overseeing the case about Herr Don-Boy's laughably fraudulent and illegal valuation of his New York properties -- he just made shit up, surprise! -- are being bombarded with death threats and every kind of abuse from MAGA thugs and morons.

Yet it goes on and on and Donald walks free and never shuts up. Will somebody please throw the piece of shit in jail, to shut him up. Lock his ass up!

Specter of Snowden, State of Fear

Are you doing anything online that might concern you if it got out? Like, perhaps, to some Trump thugs looking to weed out citizens disloyal to der Führer?

You might want to pull back. Because Trump has an enemies list, starting with every last Democrat. And he'll use Bush's wonderful NSA surveillance capabilities against them if he wins the presidency. Bush, who supposedly hated government and bureaucracy like the rest of them, created this massive entity to protect and further fund the corporatocracy. 

Edward Snowden was justifiably horrified. Trump will use it at will against any who resist him. Or who might resist him. Or anyone he's curious about. It's good to have dirt on your allies. Bedrooms and bathrooms are special points of interest for evangelicals, remember. Republicans have already declared your medical records fair game. 

I mean to frighten you. Into action. Because this is serious shit. The possibility of another Trump regime is unthinkable. And at the same time entirely real. 

More Shit With Glass Shards

We can't keep Trump from being the Republican nominee and people from voting for him. All I want is a little honesty. Trump is the shit with glass shards dish on the menu, as David Sedaris once termed it in another context. Don't order it if you don't want to eat it.

Republicans, we know you want to force it on us and we're tired of it. The endless lies and anger. And tired of cleaning up your messes. Own your shit. With glass shards. 

Bonfire of the Beatles Records

Congratulations, America. The kinds of morons who burned Beatles records in the 60s are running the country. The good news, I guess, is you're so rich a lot of your citizens still have great lives. But that also means there's been no reckoning. And you're borrrowing from the past and the future and pillaging the world to continue living well. It's too late to make it right. Too much damage. Shame on you.

There will be a reckoning. A reckoning is already here but not for the people who most caused this awful situation and deserve to go down. Typically, it's not them but the poor and powerless who are being hurt. Let's thank southern white folks for this mess. Mitch McConnell and his kind and those who vote for them. They're horrible, bigoted, stupid and nasty. And they'll vote for racism forever.

No Voice

The left is fracturing. We can't have that. Because the righties are becoming full Nazis. But this is what happens, because Nazis are incredibly driven and clever and good at messaging and deception and they're ruthless. They have the power of their delusions. 

And the rest of us are hostages to these liars and crooks and cheats. We have no voice. And have been maligned and persecuted for decades. So I'm forgiving of the transgressions and stupidity of the left, because they're reacting to beinig completely disempowered. 

Great News We're Less Fucked

For a few weeks or a month or two, we're less fucked. The government is funded. We're reduced to this, the best hostages can do, to live another day wondering when they will finally blow your head off.

Legitimate Concern

I once fired a client who was abusing me. A few of my friends knew what was up and I ran the break-up email by one on them after I had sent it. He's a writer, a client and a friend.

In it I was entirely positive and not critical of the client at all. I thanked her for all the work they'd given me and so on. I'm not sure but my friend might have been surprised.

Surprised that I didn't point out how the client had abused me. Or even hint at it. No criticism at all. I would only have made myself small by doing that, I said. Let it be known I'm not always, or maybe even usually, good at this interpersonal stuff. 

Anyway, then I said I saved that for my friends, which is true. With your friends you can average it out and they know it all already anyway. It's what they're for, as they say.

This is the way it is with Israel and American Jews and many of the criticisms of Israel brought up since the horror of the Hamas attack. I'm sure not all of it but most of the criticism I've seen, at least from the left, had been this, coming from family.

Coming from such committed friends it should be allowed. Not all of the criticism is this, of course, but I think most of it is and accusing those people of being antisemitic is wrong.

Wrong and hurtful and alienating and counterproductive. I was against America attacking Iraq after 9/11. I was against going into Afghanistan. I thought it unwise.

I was very much against the Waco intervention against that religious nut in the Clinton years. I'm skeptical of the efficacy of force. And I think it breeds more force and violence. 

So, there. If some people think Netanyahu's reaction and going into Gaza was unwise and playing into the hands of a bunch of nutcases I think it's a legitimate concern. 

And it doesn't mean they're anti-anybody.

Guess Who's Cumming All Over Your Dinner

Republicans are lining up for a nice helping of Trump ejaculate for the holidays. I guess they consider it a condiment. Maybe a kind of gravy. But anyone who understands Trump knows the real joy is in forcing yourself down the throats of your enemies and those who resist and ridicule you. They must pay. 

So in his second term everyone will have to have Trump. If we're lucky, only as a treat for the holidays. This is what it's like for decent people to listen to the great defiler, day after day, shattering norms, encouraging violence and normalizing hate. 

Pre-impeachment and More on Driving While Democrat

People selling houses, in my area anyway, usually get an inspection beforehand. They get it over with. Have you ever seen a home inspection? It's amazing how bad a normal house can sound when all the little flaws are listed.

A average inspection report looks like a book. Republicans have decided being a Democratic president is an impeachable offense. That any Democratic power is verboten. Democrats should go ahead and impeach their own guys. 

Pre-impeach them. It might help. But Republicans invent offenses. They make shit up, change standards, and distort the hell out of everything. Still, we must resist. Insist on standards. And oppo ourselves as part of a defense. 

We are the enemy. 

The Road to Hell Isn't Paved

What have we learned? The road to hell isn't paved. The road to hell is hard. The road to hell is gravel and rutted and has potholes. And it's uphill. Steep. Not a slippery slope. 

Follow the money. Americans didn't go to hell spontaneously. Money was poured into it. A fortune. The evil has momentum now and money is still poured into it. By investors. 

In other words, people who only spend money for a return. This is good, I guess. Because I think it means if we shut down Fox and stop Koch and undo Citizens United it might end.

The rush to evil might end. On the other hand, they make it hard. They control everything. The recent claim that they're the victims is a lie. An obvious lie. So they have to push it.

A lie, like all the others. There's a concept in ecology, I think, that a monoculture is the most unstable thing ever, requiring enormous energy subsidies to exist. So with theirs. 

A green lawn of white men. We be weeds. Their resurgent purity state is unnatural as shit. Diversity is natural. Time is on our side. Not to say they won't get lots of people killed.

They always have. 

Room at the Bottom

Republicans can't rest on their victories. They're too scared the people they've duped into voting for them will get a clue. And rise up and come after them. So they have to disempower those people. And there's always room at the bottom. 

Shit With Glass Shards

Seeing where Republicans have ended up I remembered an essay by David Sedaris, something about voting and shit with glass shards and how, with that on the ballot running against 'the chicken' as though it were someing to eat, you didn't ask how it was cooked or by any means order it or vote for shit with glass shards. 

But this assumed nobody would want to eat shit, especially with glass shards, and we were wrong. Republicans want shit, to eat it or otherwise, and with glass shards. In other words, something as wrong, unpalatable and potentially harmful as possible. 

Project Immorality

Republicans want to enshrine exploitation and make it into law. It's not enough they've destroyed the middle class and created tons of suffering and staggering inequality. They worry about a return to justice, fairness and decency. Which is against nature and not the way God made the world, a nasty and brutish place in which we are trapped while we await His return. And die.

Dying is good. They are for it. And misery until you die because you deserve it unless you don't. And which of those is clear in the way God's will plays out. Some are chosen, some damned. And you can't do shit about it. It's predetermined. So, how you behave doesn't matter. The rich have obviously been chosen. Especially those who are rich and assholes because good works are useless. 

So don't give me any of that social justice shit. 

Justice is God's gig and God chose to be arbitrary, about the only thing that really matters, salvation. So arbitrary it is. And, since God is a dick who created people who were damned, holiness and being an asshole are aligned, if not the same thing. Hence the 'conservative' devotion to a certain asshole candidate. Talk about arbitrary! You see now how it works. And how screwed we are. 

Shut the fuck up and watch while Republicans ruin your lives and destroy eveything. That's the way it has to be. And if it seems insane and inhumane and stupid and unnecessary remember and rejoice, because it's the will of God.

Evil is Banal and So Are You

People aren't archetypes, I think is the point, but they embody archetypes by degrees, and more than one at once. Archetypes are the forms, in Plato's sense, and people are mixtures and shadows of those and subject to the constraints of place and time whereas the archytypes are pure and unchanging, though multifarious and multifaceted. Permanent, in some sense, and perfect. 

The evil we encounter isn't as it's often portrayed in books and movies. Because life doesn't end, though ours does, so there's no final judgment on an outbreak of evil. It's woven into the fabric of life, the flip side of the coin of goodness. We're infested with these archetypes, all running around in there, and approaching purity isn't pure it's monstrous. Purity isn't meant for us. 

We are creatures of space and time, and when we aspire to purity we don't actualize our humanity we lose it. So the quest for purity is associated with delusion. Archetypal purity isn't something to be striven for and reached it takes over people as they approach it and they are consumed. They might make it back, perhaps as shamans, if that (schizophrenic) journey involves a return. 

A rebirth, in some formulations. Or that venturer might be dehumanized and destroyed, Which, I believe, inevitably happens to some of us. So we have a stake in crazy people. In some way they bear a burden for us. The responsibility is to prevent (future) harm. So I don't believe in the death penalty but in other circumstances I might, if it's the only way to limit future harm.