The Perfection of Projection

I never saw or understood it until I ran into a hard case. Then it blew my mind. And I began to see it everywhere including in myself. Now I'm in the middle. Like racism, the problem is that it's normal. Normal to trust the familiar and those who are like you. And to be suspicious of the unfamiliar. The true sign of racism, which I define broadly as treating anyone according to anything other than standards of behavior, is when familiarity doesn't result in fairness. In allowing people the benefit of the doubt.

Projection results from denial. Not owning stuff. Thinking you're better than or above that, like being human and flawed. So racism, with its irrationality, identification, and tribal, emotional components is prime material for projection. Both projecting racism and projecting within a racist framework. Projecting onto people you irrationally hate or fear. Those who are less at odds with themselves and so less prone to projection have trouble seeing it in others because they project their relative innocence onto them. 

So there's that, which has frustrated the hell out of the Democrats who have seen for decades how insane Republicans are but can't get the party, as a whole, to react appropriately to the threat. Too late now. But I think it's still important to understand the perfection of the mechanism. The 1:1 correlation when the right-wing nutcases get fixated on something and it becomes a 'talking point' becase they're doing it. And because it's unconscious it's guileless. All this shit they're putting onto Democrats is true of them.

And that means we're fucked. To an unknown degree and for an unknown duration. The thing is operating now beyond the reach of those who created it for their selfish ends. So the 'libertarian' Koch monster, a franken-philosophy, has escaped from their think tanks and is loose. They fear it themselves, so more than ever they're directing the beast at Democrats though they are the ones who screwed the people who've been duped into being libertarian predator drones and serving the interests of the rich. 

This is not a drill. This is not a game. This is not a test. We're in a fight of good against evil. When they say Democrats are traitors and have no standards and are irresponsible and hate America and want to destroy it they're describing themselves. Everything they say about Democrats is true of them. They're telling us who they are. And they're absolutely fine with getting millions of people killed so rich fuckers can have more money. The religious fanatics love the idea. Of an apocalypse. It's totally insane. 

Diane Arbus

I've never understood the controversy about Diane Arbus. It seems clear to me that she is a Goth. She was highlighting elements of the macabre and grotesque in everyday life because they're a part of everyday life and if you don't integrate them you don't have stability. This is Freudian and Jungian and archetypal and Greek mythical and all that. 

If you don't acknowledge and integrate the 'lower' things they rise up and take over. Run things. They're not really lower just things. In individuals and societies the 'higher' things must rule or you have chaos. Like we have now. Arbus grew up gritty, no matter her "privilege" and being a child of the American era and its crazy suburban postwar optimism. 

Arbus is about boundaries and sensitivities and sensibilities. My guess is Arbus couldn't keep stuff out. That she had boundary issues because she couldn't defend herself. That she saw stuff others didn't see and couldn't stop seeing it. She was forced to look.

She tried to reset her own circuits. And it can't work for a person like Arbus in a society that can't own its shit. Because Arbus defaulted to openness. When she let her guard down she was open. She saw it all. And it pissed her off and made her hurt. And how do you balance out a consumerist Eden? You reach out into the hinterlands of Eden, into the dark.

To the grotesque. Because it's always there.

The Vicar of Wokefield

Democrats have been serving a strange master. You wonder if they are masochists. I think they misunderstand the terrain. They keep peddling old electoral points. Though they seem to be holding their ground if you step back the truth emerges. They've lost to an epic degree. 

Asses were kicked. 

They've been crushed, disenfranchised and banished from the lands of political potency into the fields of feckless spectatorship. They've been retired or their values have. Still, they continue to screw up in the same way apparently never asking themselves if they should try something else.

Just try it. Because they're losing to goons. People who aren't even American. Who don't accept anything like the initial social contract. Yet they say they're originalists. The founders were rationalists and pragmatists, to a fault. Not cultists. That practicality is banished with the Democrats.

Democrats represent the true, flawed traditions of America. They have to ask themselves, given where their political tactics have gotten them, if they should rethink. First they have some pride to swallow, to see how badly they've been beaten. Then their party and the country might be reborn.

Arming the Unborn

The defenseless are most in need of defense. Especially when they're known targets and under deadly attack. How does this not apply to the pre-born? Therefore, they must be armed. The weapons will be miniaturized and introduced via existing surgical methods. 

Any practical difficulties are easily surmountable. Morally this can be nothing but right. Mothers considering abortion will think twice knowing their fetus can blast its way out of the womb. The assumption is, after a few grisly episodes there will be no more abortions. 

Word will get out among mothers. Abortion is not the way to go. A fetus defended is a fetus preserved. And self defense is a constitutional right. The womb a home. Stand your ground. Questions of fetal competency and informed decision-making might be raised. 

But they are overridden by the right to life. Once born that new life is on its own. Because it is God's way. One of many sinners in the hands of a sociopathic God that condemns His own creation. Power has its privileges. Life is a prison sentence that must be endured.

If God intended it to be nice we would still be in Eden.

Freda's Last Stand

Freda Black's closing argument in The Staircase was the turning point I've argued since I saw it. The bitch was, in her authority as a state employee, lawyer and officer of the court, saying to the jury that your hate has a place here. Is appropriate here. Was admissible, so to speak, and applicable. 

So it was about permission. 

Permission to bring that stuff to bear. The jury's 'disgust' wasn't relevant. Their bigotry and prejudice and dislike of the person weren't relevant or appropriate. In fact, it was the jury's responsibility to rise above all that. They didn't. And influential Republicans are all-in on permission. Permission to hate. 

Freda died in the ditch, more or less, like the piece of shit she was. But don't let that make you feel it was a fitting outcome or justice. It should make us sad and in complicated ways. People like Freda drag us all into the ditch. People like Marjorie Taylor Greene. And mostly they can't help it. 

As much as their behaviors seem composed, organized and sickly coherent it's a compulsion. They're sick. But why we would let these psychos run the show I don't know. Apathy, maybe. Or frustration or feelings of powerlessness. I understand. Perhaps we think we will get away with it.

And I don't know how to stop it myself, so who am I to talk. 

Oh, of Course

Trump's vanity and need to be the center of attention were enough to explain his trip to New York City for an indictment holiday. What a drama queen! But, of course, we see the point now. To raise money off of it. Say what you will, Don-boy knows a good scam when he sees it. A sure thing, this is. He understands his supporters are incredible suckers. 

60,000,000 Maniacs

I wish this were the name of a band. It's not. It describes a faction of the American voting public.

Spucklerization

Spucklerization is when the lowest common denominator effect results in something looking like the Spuckler household on The Simpsons. The only thing worse is when you have more than one group descending to this level in which case you inevitably have a feud. You might end up with one anyway. Spucklers are usually armed, easily manipulated, and inclined to conspiracy thinking. 

They will attack unprovoked and spontaneously believing it's self-defense because they're so utterly incapable of understanding anything and just generally nuts. The United States, you will note, has been completely Spucklerized. Republicans needed Spuckler votes so they played to their ignorance which inflamed and reinforced that ignorance and then they played to that resulting in a downward spiral. 

Spucklerization is a horrible fate. They reproduce like rabbits. Between that and susceptibility they are worthy voter prey. They are not only against birth control and family planning they want to deny these to everyone else. The reason is unclear. It seems to have something to do with religion. Don't ever try to understand Spucklers. You will never succeed and you might get depressed and despair.

That is, despair over our common humanity. Association can only result in bad outcomes, possibly even contamination. You might think you're safe but Spucklers can instantly become violent and threatening over nothing, which is to say their delusions. You might then justifiably become fearful yourself. In this it resembles rabies or vampirism. If they bite you you might become like them. 

Avoid association at all costs. And pity the poor Americans. They are living in a mess of it.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

How, you might ask, does so-and-so not notice the broomstick shoved up his ass? It must be magic. Magical levels of distraction and diversion. Fox News enters in with their hocus-pocus. And the Koch Network (more behind-the-scenes) with their miraculous money wand and smokescreen.

Poof, no healthcare. Poof, stagnant wages in a raging economy. Poof, average citizens at one another's throats for no reason but to occupy them with lies and bullshit while the rich ravage the country. 

Thus the working class, enough of them, vote for the broomstick up the ass. They've been living with it for so long. A heavy dose of hate is deployed in the deceit. Still, the broomstick hurts. As for the bedknobs, they pertain to the women and another kind of occupation. But we won't go there.

It's become clear enough without spelling it out, especially in Texas and Tennessee and Kentucky and such places. What self-loathing, or displaced hate, lies behind McConnell votes? In his state even the people are fried -- completely fried Kentuckians. Hate-fried, with a side of law slaw.

A legal system chopped to shreds, useless to the people it's supposed to protect. 

What Assholes

There appears to be no established term for a group of assholes and it's trying my patience not having one in these days of the Republican hegemony and onslaught. Hey, 'hegemony' or 'onslaught' might work. An onslaught of assholes. How about a tirade. A tirade of assholes. Anyway, this has just occurred to me. I'll work on it some and get back to you. 

Waffenpoofs

J. D. Vance is forming an a cappella group of Yale Republicans, my sources say, called the Waffenpoofs. The idea, of course, is to own and irritate liberals. That is all they care about. It has been established that their long-touted 'conservative values' such as the rule of law and fiscal sanity are a sham and front for a huge power grab devoid of any decency and fair play. Still, they have managed to wrest control of our society and skew it unrecognizably to the right so they are in a festive and celebratory mood though our sitting president is the epitome of evil and the Senate somewhat screwed up. 

So, an a cappella group of 14 (a traditional number) with Yale connections and solid nutcase credentials is in the works. They will all be slung with assault rifles (hence the clever 'waffen' prefix) and might shoot up the audience at any time, a reminder that life is short (and getting shorter in America) and that one should strive to have principles and vote Republican not that these are in any way connected but that's authoritarianism for you. The repertoire will of course extol the deeds of their idols, like Iran-Contra, starting the Iraq War and causing the '08 financial collapse with deregulation.  

With a lot of spin, no doubt, since these were catastrophes. Most of the songs, however, will ridicule Democrats and be rife with suggestive language and innuendo about how they are traitors and deserve to be killed, but that is normal Republican fare as part of their effort to uphold standards. Do they have nothing better to do, you ask, than defiling a light-hearted and innocent pastime? The answer is no. They live to own the libs. And they are bitter. At places like Yale it's assumed there's a link between being smart and being a Democrat and liberal and rational and caring and tolerant. 

What presumption! Sadly, Stewart Rhodes will not be in on it since he's in jail for trying to overthrow the government. But Steve Mnuchin and Wilber Ross are on board. John Bolton and Ben Carson are considering it. None of these people can sing but neither did they have any business as civil servants as they showed in the Trump fiasco. They have only enormous drives to advance themselves at any expense to other people, and ideally at the expense of other people, the guiding ethos of Trump's life. Josh Hawley, another fresh face and avowed theocratic crank, will lead the chorus along with Vance.

It's Worse in the App

By worse we mean better. I'm talking about the new Republican guide to channeling your money where it will do the most harm, now out in an app. There are so many choices, and many are basically street dealers who might be pocketing a lot, like Steve Bannon. The big boys don't need the money. Though all corruption serves the cause, disempowering average citizens, it's all good. 

Only better if effectively directed.

They are awash in money. Unbelievable amounts of money. And never satisfied. What kind of an idiot wants people who can't afford it to have healthcare? This is interfering in the free market, never mind that the markets couldn't be less free if they were under direct governmental control. Corporations control them, of course, as it should be, with government as a front. One of many. 

Corruption isn't a failure of government it's a philosophy of government. 

Neo-Nazi Flees New York

Marjorie Taylor Greene has fled New York and what a shame. Our conspiracy-minded girl was piecing together some evidence and its compelling implications, that she is llving through, and now participating in as a leading figure, a turning point in history.

There she saw the Koch Concert Hall and, oh my God, made a connection. We have these two families of German extraction that have come together, Kochs and Trumps, to save America from itself and make America great again just as Hitler did for the fatherland. 

Consider the confluences. Weathy sadistic daddies named Fred that trained their sons to be killers, kings and, above all, winners, equipping them to do so with piles of cash. These fathers were really sick fucks but they have achieved the final goal of immortality.

They left us sons so fucked up and dehumanized they are without lives of their own, independent personalities or consciences -- predator daddy drones. And the name Koch resonates with a hero of MTG's, Ilse Koch, wife of the commandant of Buchenwald. 

Who was known as she-wolf.

What an appellation! Marjorie so wants to be a she-wolf. Anyway, after hitting the thrift shops looking for memorabilia made of human body parts Marge received much disrespect while innocently expressing support for our designated savior and führer, Herr Donald.

But it was a relief not to have to worry about Jewish space lasers for a while, assuming they wouldn't attack a community so full of their own. Be reassured. Marjorie isn't going anywhere. She was on 60 Minutes! And she's all over the Goebbels News Network. 

We better get used to it. Liberals, airheads and flakes call the kinds of eerie experiences Marjorie had in New York (she has them all the time) serendipity or 'synchronicity' or déjà vu or some such bullshit. Conservatives call it destiny. And Marjorie knows she is its child. 

Kill a Koch Today (Not Really)

With the Republican talk of Democrats being traitors and pedophiles and 'what they used to do to traitors' and all I wanted to see if a germ of truth can be saved from the bottomless cesspool of their delusions and conspiracism, which are underwritten by the hate and fear wing of their movement.

Speaking of which, wouldn't those people be the real traitors, the Kochs and Murdochs of the scheme, who stay in the background, relatively, but have turned the country into an ungovernable mess so they can make more money and have more power? We can't go around wantonly killing people, I know.

But what's the next best thing? Complete and total disempowerment. Think of how it might be if Fox News ceased its broadcasts. If the entire Koch network, with all its tentacles, were shut down and the lackeys of the rich removed from Congress and lobbying disallowed and fair voting guaranteed.

And Citizens United thrown out the fucking window.

My God, the images that come to mind are Edenic. We might have a country again. A recognizable social contract. Civil relations among citizens and reasonable and fair returns for work performed and contributions made apart from inherited wealth and cascading profits for the fortunate. 

Discussions Are Moderated for Incivility

Sustained civility hurts ratings. It will not be tolerated. 

Trump Agonistes

Make no mistake, drama queen Trump is going to love being under indictment, being arraigned and then being tried however it plays out. The world is finally conforming to his internal reality. He is at the center of everything again, now undeniably with people coming after him, never mind that he caused it, deserves it, and should have had his plug pulled decades ago. The man's infantile egotism is incomprehensible. 

The Colossus of Rude

With Trump things can only get worse. It's a character thing, which is interesting because conservatives are supposed to be into character, as in virtue, and they love Trump and he's a piece of shit. 

And now we have an indictment. Which I'm not so thrilled about because it doesn't get at Murdoch or Koch or the rich fuckers behind the scenes, the assholes who are destroying us and don't care at all. 

But I guess the Trump drama will be entertaining because he's going to go full tragic opera fat lady cum histrionics wailing his head off and attacking everyone in sight with heavy verbal artillery.

He'll be a colossus of rude.

Mad Englishmen and Their Dogs

I think the English perfected imperialism, colonizing even themselves. They turned their lower classes into willing dupes and enablers of their own screwing and lower status, training them like dogs.

Now we can see the American, purportedly anti-imperial, attitude for what it was -- eliminating the competition. Because America is a huge empire, an extension or replacement of the English. 

With all that follows, dragging the world along for their purported benefit into the fate of being mined. It's for your own good! You can be like us! No one should want to be. Americans were suckers.

Carrying the flag of empire -- the new English empire. 

The traditions of looting and unsustainable living thereby continue. America wants everyone on their model, after hazing and initiation in the rites of plunder. By being plundered first, that is.

And subjugated by wankers . . . 

This is a scam -- multilevel marketing at a colossal scale. And not necessarily doomed to fail but certainly destined to end in a horrible, brutal, inhumane and stratified mess of inequality and exploitation. 

Lab Leak

I think it originated in a lab. Because it's too far removed from its natural antecedents. Someone had to have been manipulating it.

I'm referring of course to the outbreak of right-wing insanity that has killed so many people and saturated and contaminated the airwaves.

Yes, it's spread through the air. The origins are Koch-funded and related 'libertarian' institutions. Even those have no control over it now.

Franken-president Trump frightened them, initially. But they have so corrupted the government that swamp made him its creature. 

However indigestible he was.

Converted him. And it goes on worse than ever, an apparently unstoppable contagion. When you encounter a 'think tank' be suspicious.

One with 'freedom' in its name? Be alarmed. These are the tools of the antidemocratic ultra rich. Their stealthy reach is everywhere. 

Jesus Trump Superstar

There will be music. Worship services, homage and prayers. The incense of burning cities. The sacrifice of children in schools, the Lord's Supper, Republican style. 

It's the South, Stupid

Don't say we didn't know how our country got destroyed. It got destroyed by the Confederacy. If it looks like treason there's a reason. They were always traitors.

 

The Confederacy has risen again. The stench is everywhere. They didn't come to govern. They came to destroy. Don't look for the moment. It already happened.

Evil Kraut's Kept Man Killed

Peter Thiel's cabana boy, or whatever he was, has died. Surely this should be looked into. But Thiel's a vicious rich asshole so nothing will happen. Because he might gawker them. Which is way worse than being borked. Borking is about justice and accountability. Being gawkered is about intimidation and revenge. And, fuck me, I wouldn't take a chance on that. American billionaires are as good as gods. 

No McCarthy Moment

There will be no McCarthy moment with the current crop of Republicans. The crazies have reached critical mass. 

Unrepentant, Treasonous, Degraded, Loser MAGA Scum

Pardon that title but I'm trying to capture the true nature of Congressional Republicans by balancing a desire for impact, inclusiveness and descriptive nuance against length, knowing that at some point a string of epithets works against you. The people are themselves so extreme it makes it hard. So degraded. So utterly without standards, conscience or compunction. Possessed of such groveling obsequiousness. Such slavish devotion to corruption. Such bottomless resentment, sniveling sensitivity and shamelessness.

Damn, here I go again. It really is hard. I'm practicing on you. I hope you don't mind. 

The Amazing, Ass-Kissing Scots-Irish

Someday the story will be written. Of the fall of America. The Scots-Irish must get their due, with their incredible perfection of servility and belligerence -- the highest order of ass-kissing and instinctive, reflexive combativeness. Which override any claim to intelligence. They are against it.

As men of action. Trump toadies and henchmen. Brownshirts, traitors and thugs. War criminals and cowards. How can they be cowards, when they're in the front of every fight? Because they can't face life. They have to override their fears with ignorance, and have a master to reassure them. 

Some posh, rich scum they can bow down to like Trump or the English lords who planted them in Ireland to nail down another bit of turf for the crown. There they became hardened and practiced bigots. The nasty guard dogs of empire. Human, but not. Unimaginably degraded. MAGA men.

In America they became the cannon fodder of the culture wars. The bigots who would never give up. They took it up the ass from the Yankees and never stopped fighting, and cheating, since they couldn't win fairly. Notice none are on the Supreme Court. Too stupid. They farm it out to Catholics. 

Who have their own story of degradation and shame to tell. But that's another chapter.

Hate Tornado

A Mississippi weatherman offered a quick prayer as a community was about to get clobbered by a tornado but I'm confused. Doesn't Jesus make the weather and isn't climate change a hoax? And isn't having the government come to help in any form and at any time the worst thing that can happen? 

As the sainted Ronnie said? So refuse Biden's aid and help.

Lots of thoughts and prayers, like when a school gets shot to pieces. The hate tornado coming out of the southern churches and their beloved MAGA movement is under their control. They can stop it, unlike a storm. Tomorrow. Now. Soon, anyway, by not voting for hate. They can demand justice. 

For everybody. And this side of the afterlife, you stupid shits. 

Support Our Tropes!

Trump is back. And with him the decline of everything. His followers want simplicity. Easy answers and comforting lies. Black and white. 

With them or against. And they are patriots. Being against them is treason. Take that for simplicity. And you know what they used to do to traitors . . . 

Hate and blame, it's a political movement for losers. Fearful people. So we have endless cheapshots, soundbites, stereotypes and clichés.

The School of Rocket Science

Let's say it is that hard. To keep from spontaneously running a country into the ground, for example. Without provocation or coercion. You just fucking do it from . . . what have you kind of perversion. Carelessness or childhood trauma or an implacable need to stir shit up. Whatever. 

And, wouldn't you know it, the people who want to teach civic virtue have their hearts in all the wrong places. The DeSantis crowd, who can't get over obsessing about other people's behaviors and morality, like good little puritans. Their moral superiority is assumed because it is assured. 

They are going to heaven. 

Their blameless souls have been set right with God, they say. Apparently it is too hard for a lot of Americans to behave themselves and not force their fellow citizens into a fucking feud. Over nothing. Over their fears and the delusions which have apparently taken over their minds. 

Let's Leave It at That

There should be a leftie version of Tucker Carlson's annoying habit of simultaneously suggesting something and denying he's doing it. He puts it out for the lunatic fringe to latch onto while distancing himself. 'Oh, I didn't mean for somebody to go out and shoot him' after saying how much better off the world would be without him and after someone does exactly that. 

Which of course applies to Tucker himself, that the world would be immeasurably better off without him, I'm just saying, so don't go out and shoot him but my God he's a traitor and hates America and lies and is destroying the country and the world would in fact be so much better off without him. I wish somebody would shoot his sorry ass. Sorry, that just slipped out. 

Anyway, the liberal version will of course be lighter, less vicious, and with more in the way of irony and innuendo in keeping with the known and increasing trend of the political parties breaking along educational attainment lines except for the rich fuckers who vote Republican. Tucker spells it all out for them knowing his listeners to be stupid and mostly basically morons.

But we can get by with less. More subtlety. I'm thinking of 'Let's Leave It at That' as the shtick, implying there's more to be said, but let's leave it at that.

Dude Descending a Staircase

I've argued before, Donald should be made a dame. He aspires to royalty -- being declared better by blood -- but he's such a whiner, a princess, and a drama queen or debutante. I say dame. Maybe he envied the beauty contestant candidates he once inappropriately barged in on all the finery and fuss. 

Who knows.

But I think we're owed a staircase, at least. He's running again! Another escalator entry or grand descent is needed! Ideally in a dress. Donald in drag. He's got the do. That should light up the radical web and DeSantisland which is what it's about anyway, right? Attention and money-making and drama.  

Who will present him? Mitch? Donald's the Republican gift to the world. The most inappropriate person possible for the job which he had and aspires to again. An ornament, he is. To waste and privilege. Waste is the surest sign you've made it. Doll him up like a southern belle. Showcase his uselessness.

Picture him eating a donut and ogling the window at Tiffany's, after a night on the town out grifting. Under all the makeup is this ruthlessness. Nothing but ruthlessness and ambition. Still. Because he knows he hasn't made it. Because he's an ass. Somewhere in his brainstem he knows he's an ass. 

More to the Point

I say we call non-renewable natural resources irreplaceable. It's more to the point. 

Among the Rights of the Unborn

Wouldn't those include not inheriting a planet that's been pillaged of its resources? 

Send the Murdochs to Russia

If anyone can incapacitate a country it's Rupert Murdoch. I know Russia is different bu he'll find a way. In any case we'll be rid of him. 

Peter Pan Principle with Generational Implications

I want to recall for a younger generation a phenomenon they might have missed, the Peter Pan Principle, which combines the Peter Principle and the Peter Pan Syndrome or Puer Aeternus, that of a boy who never grows up. The Peter Principle posited that people get promoted until they arrive at something they suck at. Combining these you get people promoted for their incompetence -- because they're incompetent. So, there's an element of the Theory of the Leisure Class thrown in, where there's value in exhibiting how much damage you can incur -- usually in money wasted -- and carry on. 

Conspicuous consumption taken to the level of conspicuous waste. This can happen in succeeding generations in wealthy societies where certain children are incomprehensibly spoiled and the society can afford to support extraordinary levels of delusion and sustain major damage and get away with it, at least for a while. Trump and Bush come to mind, especially with the spectacle of Trump's arrestedness beginning to take on new meaning and revisiting Bush's play date with destiny, the Iraq War. They were bought a country to play with and they trashed it. Now, where do we go from here?

Bush was the eternal frat boy, Trump a perpetual infant and bawling brat at that. We're in uncharted waters since further regression would imply a return to the womb, but I bring this up so you can keep an eye out, since none of us really knows what that perspective might entail beyond a loss of consciousness in the usual sense. Moreover, evangelicals appear to want not the gestational state but pre-gestational since they desire to be only a soul again, which they suppose preexisted with God in perfection in an incorporeal state so it kind of boggles the mind but warrants watching. And good luck to us all. 

We Are Fucked on All These Fronts

Good faith in government is a huge thing to lose. For so many of the problems we have, like free speech on campus, there's no substitute for a consensus reflecting an intact social contract. With individuals making informed decisions based on shared values. 

Consider the judiciary. There a willingness to even recognize the element of fair play and inclusion is apparently lost to utter politicization, polarization and a drive to win. We can't have justice because Republicans killed the consensus. Thanks, assholes. 

GRUDGE

I'm trying to make 'grudge' into an acronym and asking for your help. An acronym reflecting the grudge holders running the county. The Republicans who hate America and run for office or try to get into positions where they can sabotage and kill off the country. Because they hate it.

First and foremost most obviously we have the Confederacy. Confederates hate America because it kicked their asses in a war. This is group A. Secondly we have rich assholes who are stuck in adolescence and want to destroy anyone who tells them they can't be the biggest pigs imaginable forever.

Think on that one. Some of it is well concealed. They are so rich only the government can possibly constrain them. This is force B. Together with the Confederates they comprise the core coalition of nation destroyers. Then there are the lesser groups and opportunists. Lesser saboteurs.

Mitt Romney, for example. I know he doesn't look the vandal but he's a Mormon. Mormons have a more legitimate gripe than most, the government having at best not protected them from persecution, at worst abetting it. America was home to many groups of religious weirdos.

Mormons should have been tolerated as well. But it's time for them to grow the fuck up and vote like responsible citizens and not persecute other groups who are not only less weird than them but also don't choose it, like gay people. Then there are hangers on and the inexplicables.

Like Catholics. Apparently it's a blind love of authority in their case and a desire to be prototypically and stereotypically patriotic Americans. They're still fighting the accusations circled against Kennedy over his Catholicism and channeling lunatics like Pat Buchanan and Bill Buckley. 

Lastly I guess I'll mention losers generally. Theirs is a personal grudge. They came out of the woodwork with Trump, the king of the losers. Losers will always be with us but their numbers can be lessened. By Democrats because Democrats want to take care of people. An irony, I believe. 

Making America Groan Again

We're being forced to watch Trump take a shit again. He's arrested the other side of toilet training, mistakes pooping for productivity and wants everyone to admire him for it. But it's just shit. And the MAGA folk line up to wipe his ass and marvel over his turds.

The Death of Decency

Decency didn't go down in a plane crash. We can't date it that way. Still, we watched it happen. Newt Gingrich and others emerged from the rubble of destruction with smiles on their faces and matches in their hands, proud of what they had done. Not so proud they would admit its true nature, that it amounted to a coup if they even understood that, but they were working on instinct. Some deeper, surreptitious drive. 

Maybe conservatives see Newt like Chuck Yeager walking away from the wreckage of his crashed plane, a noble failure in governance. But Newt flew it into the gound deliberately. Honest dealers don't engage in vandalism and sabotage. And Newt is no Chuck Yeager. Not in any respect. Or a Sam Shepard, even, able to act the part. He's a piece of shit, romanticizing himself as something he isn't. A decent human being. 

Newt lives in a fantasy world in which he's a hero. He's only a destroyer. And tearing stuff down is the easiest thing to do. Furthermore, his ways were contagious. Low character individuals were drawn to the movement. Drawn to the destruction, which feels like power to them. They like the feeling. They like it, as weak people are wont to. It goes on now, many years later. And decency is dead. RIP, decency. 

Rationalizing Minority Rule

I follow a few avowedly conservative sites so you don't have to and can report that conservatism is either about minority rule or justifying minority rule. Minority rule is not an unreasonable idea. Responsible conservatives would argue for it openly. I recall reading a book by a Catholic priest in which he said the point, in both individuals and the society, is to have the higher things rule the lower. If it takes minority rule to accomplish this I might be for it. 

Then there are the surreptitious social warriors who don't support minority rule openly but lie about it. That it's not what it appears to be or it's necessary in the circumstances or we won fuck you the standards don't apply. You have to ask why we end up with the liars. Always the liars. Even Orbán and his like are liars and they're pretty frank about it. Because in these cases it's not about minority rule as a means to responsible governance but authoritarianism.

Suppression, bigotry and exploitation. In the States of course the Constitution appears to be against it, even an accountable version. But, of couse, their response to this is fuck that. A power grab. They dress it up all nice in the sites I read since they're not for owning their racist and fascist roots but it all comes down to domination. Non-representative government, which isn't precluded by minority rule in my opinion. But it requires submission. Deference.

Maybe delegation. People can recognize their weaknesses in such a way that they choose to hand over operations to some duly constituted authority that is bound by higher standards. What's truly bizarre, of course, and perverse to boot, is that conservatives seem to end up consistently supporting lower standards or obliterating them aldtogether in a mass of lies and confusion. A reign of unintelligibility so they can plunder with impunity. Or delegate the plunder.

Thereby living well without having to do the dirty work. As in the USA where an enforcer class is emerging of thugs, brutes and bouncers. And citizens are lining up for this so it makes minority rule seem to have a circularity problem. That it's inherently unstable and destructive. Maybe as all forms of government. We might have to wait for a new regime or dominant species or planet to solve that one. The evidence is we aren't even in the ballpark. 

That we'll destroy ourselves completely needlessly, led by people calling themselves conservatives who haven't seen the daylight of truth for decades. 

The Employer Strikes Back

Other tycoons felt envy for Musk when he ravaged Twitter's workforce. We're told this -- a certain tolerance for ruthlessness -- is the price we pay for efficiency. But whatever good comes of it accrues to the already rich, before we even get into how some costs are socialized. 

The environmental damage and the depletion of natural resources, for example. Cheap shit is what we get. But 'cheap' is relative, and decades of irresponsible living are catching us up. And the cheap shit has crossed the line into a diseconomy, the buying of stuff out of habit or compulsion. 

Consumerism that isn't making us happy. It's making us miserable.

We got scammed. And a scammer king became president -- not the first, but a more flagrant one. It goes on because the dupes -- a crook's 'marks,' as they're called -- are invested in denial. Wouldn't you be, after decades as suckers? And the rich aren't satisfied. Still. And they never will be. 

Hence his fellow technocrats envy Musk his private heaven of unchecked power.

Chicago Schooled

I wrote a paper in graduate school in economics years ago claiming, essentially, Milton Friedman was a dualist -- that he viewed the world in relation to his 'theory' and not the other way around. This is an analog to Calvinism in that it doesn't want to see the purity of a higher, immaterial realm sullied by reality. And Friedman claimed to be an empiricist. 

Pshaw! In reality he was an arrogant prick who looked down on the lesser beings who were denied access to his Shangri La of economic perfection and bliss by their ignorance and lack of intelligence. I was the real empiricist, observing that Friedman was a smug asshole and going from there, though it worked out for me theoretically, I think. 

Anyway, we have many more data points now, meaning right wing assholes and spurious academics clinging to their precious ideas that reside in a place of utter perfection like those Calvinist souls that preexisted in purity with God and long for nothing but to return there. Which is to say, to die. Have at it! 

I mean, people die and shit and rot in the ground and look like a cow on the inside and stuff. Yuck! Milton no doubt ascended to somewhere to rub elbows with other higher beings. The thing is, this all begins with contempt. Contempt and insecurity and suspicions of superiority that can never be verified relating to access to those higher realms of thought. 

Access to perfection.

But you see the problem here. They are stuck in that fucking body with the rest of us waiting for Cheryl Tiegs to realize she is in love with them. Does this sound familiar? Notice this leads to chronic dissatisfaction with life and impatience with all the dolts they are forced to live with, non-Nobel Prize winners and other riffraff. Irrational economic actors.

Oh, fucking double-yuck!

Unattractive people. And, when I ask if it sounds familiar, does Musk come to mind? Or another of these life-loathing technocrats who rule the world? And they have joined forces with -- wait, guess who -- envangelical Christians! Retrograde Calvinists. Beautiful! Wonderful! What a great thing, to have people in charge who absolutely loathe life. 

Great idea! Who came up with this? Shouldn't they get a Nobel Prize or something? So, you see, they are left to cling to unverifiable hypotheses. Their theories reside right in there in the same compartment with that belief in their superiority and Cheryl Tiegs needing to come to her senses. Hope on, delusional boys. But leave us the hell out of it!

Live and Let Lie

I think we've gone on long enough hoping the Republican lie factory would be self-limiting or collapse under the weight of its own bullshit. It must be destroyed. But the cunning fuckers have added safeguards along the way, like loading up the Supreme Court with conservative flunkies and political hacks, and misconstruing all kinds of laws and conventions. 

Spin, I think it's called. First on the list of targets of course is Fox News. How can we take their asses out? Democracy or Fox, that is the question. It appears we can't have both. 

My Life in a Jar

Capital is human preserves. 

Your life in a jar. In a pantry. This is not all bad, depending on who has access to the pantry. Rightfully, of course, it should be those who created the value. The surplus. With an element of need in the mix. But not a Mnuchin or another financial manipulator.

We know how that goes, has gone, after decades of Republican chicanery, subverting democracy for the benefit of the haves. Resources, that ill-used endowment, comprise another side of capital. On which we all have a claim. Guarantees of that aren't a gift.

They are a right. That we should assert. But the pantry overflows and is out of our control. An everything has a shelf life. If it's not a rock. Even rocks, if you go out far enough. Too far out to feed your children, for sure. The time to assert those rights is now.

Because everyone has the right to a share. An unprejudiced shot at a decent life. Against the interests of the world's Mnuchins and money launderers, ravagers and pricks, perhaps, but fuck them. The prevailing levels of inequity are unacceptable and inhumane. 

The Asshole Industrial Complex

One begins an exploration of the Asshole Industrial Complex with examples. Jim Jordan comes to mind for me. It might be someone else for you but it can't be any old asshole. It has to be someone who is a product of the asshole production system and who serves it. Ron DeSantis's assholedom, as superb as it is, is privately held and controlled by him which makes it less degrading. A submissive asshole is more of an asshole. You can see how I came to rest on Jordan. He's so good at it.

He grovels and looks down at you at the same time, though it doesn't produce the effect he wants, engagement at his level. Only irritation or pity. That is, as long as one doesn't lose their shit and go there, which can be hard not to do. Assholes normally induce contempt. And sadness at the loss of a soul. Those without the predisposition can act the asshole but it's not recommended. Because it infests those who are susceptible and erodes their humanity. Jordan's has been reduced to a residue. 

Really nothing left. You wonder if the wrestling is related in his case. An honorable sport in honorable hands but you can see how a certain kind of person with a craving for degradation might be drawn to it. Just add mud. Which he basically has. Anyway, Trump of course brought assholes out of the woodwork and closet. We face an epidemic and it's an end-stage thing, being parasitic. It can't go on. Like the massive inequality and structural injustice we face it's hard to reverse. 

The cure is humanity. Decency. Assholes will always be with us. But it's insane to empower them. As an official complex its reversal, however, requires collective action. Simple humanity as a political, social and economic force. The education and enlightenment among those who resist assholedom occurs at an individual level, creating an understanding of the immense power assholes have when aggregated. The asshole agenda can only be thwarted through organized resistance.

Frankly, They Don't Give a Damn

All this analysis and criticism of Republicans and their undemocratic ways is a huge waste. Because they don't give a shit. We're only preaching to the choir. 

Conservative Kakistocracy

I was a kid who couldn't understand how the Catholic Church threw out beauty for horrible ritual and nuns in polyester pants suits -- undoubtedly an odd kid. Through Catholicism I had felt tied to a huge history. I thought I had roots. 

My mother's father was nearly 80 when I was born. I remember thinking, not saying it was right, that the three generation thing was kind of a fundamental unit through which culture got passed down. I haven't changed my mind.

Seeing grandparents with their grandkids reinforced it. And, I thought -- this was still as a kid -- that the three-generation thing spanned 100 years. Which meant, there were 20 of those between us and the Romans and Christ. 

In other words, nothing. 

And the Church threw it out for insipid guitar music and kumbaya bullshit. I was appalled. I was always instinctively conservative. A preservationist. But I was sensitive, to a degree, if I may say it. I parted ways with conservatism. 

Because they were the destroyers. And this was early, meaning Nixon days. I wasn't an identified lefty then. More politically uninvested and homeless. But, for all intents, left. Because I was a preservationist and had faith in humanity.

Not on evidence but as a shot in the dark. Because I believe that how we view things is not at root analytical but aspirational. Creative, in the matter of outcomes. So as it goes -- my political homelessness -- it has been a rough ride. 

I'm a committed liberal now. They are the preservationists, favoring optimism, decency, the common good and continuity. I think conservatism is flawed, by its nature. They stress character, not behaviors. Which is racist and arrogant.

More than that, it's racism. 

Behaviors define people. Our judgments of character have to depend on behaviors. So, there. Conservatism is a scam. It's derivative, defensive, and tied to feeling superior. And inferior people need to feel superior.

Better people have better things to do. They don't need to keep other people down, or make bogus hierarchical distinctions. They simply live, and feel more secure when others are secure. The USA is the example. Of how to do it wrong. 

American 'conservatives' are run by their lowest character faction. The worst among them. And those persons are driven to run everything. Which gets us to kakistocracy. Rule of the worst. And not as a malfunction or misfire. 

It's in the nature of conservatism. 

The Rednecks are Coming! The Rednecks are Coming!

After a good run the United States has been overrun and ruined by rednecks. The redneck values of anti-intellectualism, violence, racism, reflexive deference to force and martial authority and a need to always be at war or, barring that, having a huge feud to entertain oneself now define America. The country is awash in guns, overt racism is fine, and the 'rule of law' and equality before it are toast.

Hairy Plotter Returns

Trump is back. And more full of shit than ever. And, more bullshit requires, well, more bullshit. In a cycle that will reach a climax in destruction if it goes on. 

When America Was Great

I want to know when the MAGA crowd think America was great. You know, a target date. A benchmark or something we can shoot for.

But that raises policy questions. Who stood for what and who did what and who fucked up what and accountability and causality and all. 

I know better. They won't go there. They can't go there. Because accountability or even an interest in accountability is something they can't have. 

Because Republicans have a lot to answer for. They must make sure that never happens. There's blood on their hands. And shit everywhere.

Still Life With Lies

What have we learned about Fox News? Nothing, really. Tucker trashing Trump doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know, that they're criminals. That they prey on people. It's the only way they know how to live. We come back to the SCOTUS and libertarian influence. 

We can do nothing. For decades the rich have asserted their right to be free to enslave the rest of us and treat us as a resource, to be  used and abused as they will. Fuck the country. There is no country. Or they are it. And equal protection is a memory, if it ever existed.