Informed and Empowered

American southern systemic racists informed Hitler's racism. America's laissez-faire capitalists caused the Great Depression which put Hitler in power. And that exact coalition has taken over America. 

The Billionaire Boys Club

What are we to make of these men? They aren't normal men by any means. Normal men aren't billionaires. Lord Musk, we should call him. Perhaps, Lord Musk of X. He would like that. 

All of them, we should call them lords. These rich fucks. To remind us they live in another world. That we have nothing in common with them at all. And to show deference. Because they own us now. 

Are American Rednecks the Worst People in the History of the World?

I grew up in a place that had both rednecks and relatively poor, pissed-off black people. The black people we could understand. The rednecks were the worst. Every opportunity was open to them, in the most fortunate historical circumstances ever. And they choose shit. They always choose shit.

And now, through affiliation with the larger group of idiot-voting evangelical southern white people, the whole country has gone redneck. They were the lowest of the low and they've drug us all down. We're awash in guns and needless violence. Country is a feud and we're stirring up shit elsewhere. 

All because of the redneck code of ignorance, belligerence, servility and weirdly overweening pride. They'll never admit they've done anything wrong and they've done everything wrong. They think they're being attacked when nobody gives a shit about them but they're always on the attack. 

Tell me rednecks haven't won. Decency and fairness are done. Democracy -- once assumed to be a thing we all agreed on, no matter which side won -- is being openly attacked. Intimidation is in the air. Threatening entire families is normal if you disagree with them -- totalitarian stuff. Tyranny.

Despotism. Tyranny. Republicans are the American Nazi Party. And they're running everything. 

Nazi versus Normal

Not a hard choice, one would think ...

Cowboy Flunkies

Look at Republican ideals. Powerful, beneficent white men running things and stepping in with a heroic response when something goes wrong or the times demand it. Then look at the losers they have at the top. Mitch McConnell no Marlboro Man. None of them meet the standard, cowering under Trump. 

Indulgence and Discipline

Depending on where I was in some respect I don't understand I would either indulge myself when something went wrong or I would have some discipline. The first comforted me and the latter gave me a feeling of control. Maybe I'd do some of both and of course we all have that choice all the time even when things aren't going wrong.

But it's more obvious when they are. America always chooses indulgence. Maybe because we're rich. I think more because we're irresponsible. We're spoiled. And we've turned the country over to the frat boy crowd. Their response is to throw a party, get drunk and trash shit. We're living in Animal House. And, Bluto for President! 

Oil is our beer. Consuming something. Consuming anything. But 'Drill, Baby, Drill' is our response -- the frat boy, Republican response. It's a compulsion now, the only thing they know how to do. And they're running everything. 

Party Without Principles

Republicans have no vision or intelligible goals. They want to wreck stuff. But, meanwhile, they're happy to suck off of everyone else as its convenient. 

Powerballs

In the extreme the normal dualities the interplay of which create balance both diverge and meet up. It's a paradox. Men are completely without all of the traditionally feminine attributes. Women, similarly, discompnnect from their masculine aspects. So, in a way, they're polarized.

Unnaturally separated from one another. 

But together they inhabit the island of lost souls. And what they've lost is their humanity, in fantasies of dominance and submission. But it all looks exactly the same. Like in a cult. Leaders and followers with lost souls, indistinguishable in their inhumanity. And there's a death wish all around. 

In the absence of balance and humanity everything becomes about power. And it becomes a lottery. Arbitrary as hell. Who gets to have the balls, to be on top, while everything comes unglued. 

Arrest Donald Trump

I've decided it's time to arrest Trump. If they can do it to Diddy they can do it to Donald. Reviewing his history, there's so much criminality there the thing is to simply arrest him. On whatever charges. Then go after him with everything. 

If Biden needs to get involved, with the superpowers and immunity conferred to him by the Supreme Court, that's fine. Declare a national emergency and martial law or whatever. That's what Trump would do. That's what his advisors were recommending over nothing. 

And Trump is trying to overthrow the government and destroy the country. Throw the son of a bitch in jail. Put him in with Diddy. They can talk about their rapes and shit. 

The Life of the Party

There are two possible outcomes to the election. Trump wins the election or Trump tries to steal it. Are we really ready for this?

Actually there's a third possibility. That Republicans make it impossible to know who won. It which case it should default to the Democrat. 

Which they'll disallow. Trump is his Party. Its his. He intends to do that with the country. Somebody is going to have to do something.

Republicans, say after me ...

'I don't give a shit how many people I get killed.'

Elizabeth Warren reminded me (article, not in person) how hard Republicans tried to kill Obamacare and how close they came. We were saved by John McCain, probably not because he's a decent guy but because of some honor thing. Trump is still saying he'll replace it with something wonderful that will apparently come to him in a dream or be concocted on demand by Stephen Miller and Steve Mnuchin or other such idealists and recognized humanitarians. But you can bet your ass corporations will make a shitload of money on it. Getting rid of Obamacare will kill people. And they don't care. 

The Baiting Habits of Republicans

I hate baiting. It's disrespectful and incredibly aggressive. A form of assault. But it gives the practitioner deniability and an opening to unload blame on the victim. No, you're the one. I didn't do anything. Why are you attacking me. 

Unlike any kind of honest disagreement. 

Trump, of course, as in so many other things, blows the curve and makes it easier to see what Republicans have been routinely doing since Reagan and especially since 1994 or so, when the vile Gingrich gang began their attacks. 

Attacks on what? Democrats.

Republicans claimed the high ground, of course, saying they were patriots, the real Americans and, typically, Christians and saved and all that shit. What assholes. Trump belittles and maligns people like no one has ever seen. 

If someone fights back, they're 'nasty.' He's the biggest victim. Downtrodden, disrespected and unfairly treated. Poor little Donny! So sad! Abused in relation to what he deserves, which is a world centered entirely on him. 

That sums it up, what Republicans believe in -- privilege. Getting something for nothing. Lives of blessings arbitrarily bestowed on them. Which is why they have to lie. All the time. Because the whole thing is a scam. 

Girl Hands Trump His Ass (in Debate)

And Trump didn't recognize his own ass. He was, like, "what's this?" But nobody can say he's capable of self-awareness. Maybe someone should have said "sir, it's your ass," or words to that effect. Then he might have learned something. 

Sorry Puppy

On Trump's sudden concern about dogs, since 1) I don't think he's ever owned one and 2) he wouldn't give a shit about it if he did, someone must have offhandedly called him a sorry puppy or something and then he felt threatened by any talk of bad stuff happening to dogs. Because Trump cares only about himself, one of the few certainties about him. That, and that he's an idiot. 

Trump for Resident

I'm renewing my extremely generous offer from 2016 and 2020 to allow Trump to stay in the country but the conditions have changed, in part because some forfeiture of his New York assets is already probably pending in relation to a court imposed fine. In addition Trump and his family continue to do illegal stuff right and left and try to subvert the government so the country is still due restitution and further damages. 

The thing remains doable but if a deal can't be reached he will have to forfeit all of his domestic assets and leave the country. And, if it comes to that, the culpability of his kids will need to be determined separately and individually. Trump's sons and the Kushners are clearly in deep shit while Barron is a novice and apprentice at graft and thievery but he is being initiated into it with a crypto scam, to give you an idea. 

It's a never-ending torrent of illegality and corruption with these people.

Ars Longa Trump Brevis

"Art is long, Trump is short."

Trump the Entertainer

The Great Donaldo had a bad night at the magic show. Normally he pulls something interesting out of his ass but last night at the debate he pretty much lit his farts on fire. 

Nepo Baby Melts Down

It's tantrum time for Trump. 

The Charge of the Right Brigade

Into the valley of death rode MAGA. Determined, but nothing can make up for idiocy at the top. And the guy at the top is as clueless an imperial moron as any normal British lord.  

A New Dawn. A New Day.

To think we might one day be rid of Trump. 

We'll be stuck with MAGA but it's a start. Though I still believe the world as we've known it is ending, maybe it doesn't have to be so horrifically bad. I didn't watch the debate. I won't watch clips. I can't take seeing the orange asshole in action. 

But much credit to Kamala for doing as well as she did. 

The Personification of Sin is Trump

Sin is something somebody does wrong, though an intention has to qualify and contributing in a not obviously material way to a culture of malevolence or corruption or deceit or grandiosity has to count. What's right can is defined in relation to what's wrong, and the big distinction between a simple lapse or failing and the denial that life is intelligible and that it matters if you get hundreds of thousands of people killed because, well, you're a person too, has to be bigger than the distinction between sinning an not sinning, I think. 

Thar She Blows

Trump is both Ahab and the whale. He's his own obsession. America's puritanisim has finally caught up with it. Everybody dies in the end. Because that's the desired outcome. 

The Calm Before the Sturm

This election will determine the fate, I think, of the American Nazi (Republican) Party, and so the fate of America since they run it. And it's going to be close.

The Shifting Sands of Conservatism

Conservatism doesn't stand for anything. Look at its history. It's a system for control -- I was going to say -- but it changes too much in response to circumstances to be called a system. It's more like a drive. The drive to be on top. To win. Which, you would think, means they believe in class and hierarchy but even that's hard to pin down since their need for order might result in aristocracy or oligarchy or some kind of monarchy or another kind of despotism but they want shit nailed down. And if that means nailing you down or to a cross that's fine. 

I'm saying Jesus was a liberal. Jesus was a reformer. Jesus was anti-authoritarian -- except when the authority came from God. And conservatives are personal authoritarians. But no person can be the authority. No clan or tribe. No government or confederation. No Masons or Moose Lodge. None of these unless they answer to God, according to Jesus. And what is God in this? The entity that validates our humanity. The Logos. God gives our lives meaning. Divisions within humanity are false, because they are arbitrary. But conservatives love arbitrary. 

They don't love God. They're looking out for themselves. And new technologies have made them nuts. The opportunities for control are greater than ever -- the surveillance economy and data mining and all that. They say they want small government. Then what's up with the massive surveillance state they created to 'keep us safe' from some ill-defined threat? Who's being protected? Not average citizens. Corporations and the rich. Always corporations and the rich. Because only they matter. To conservatives. And they're running everything.

Donald's Day Off

Did you ever stop to think that Donald has never worked a day in his life? All he's done in screw around. And screw up. Every day is Donald's day off. 

Trump's 'Weave'

Someone was trying to tell him he's a basket case.

We Break You Fix

uBreakiFix is an actual business. I wish them well. We Break You Fix is also a business -- the Republican Party.

Shitstain for President

Vote for Trump. Because you don't give a fuck. 

The Tao of Trump

The Tao of Trump is collapsing and inward moving -- not a higher consciousness, a lower consciousness. Or, the loss of consciousness, character, identity and humanity. Giving up on everything. A brainstem or digestive kind of function. Mere existence. Meaningless existence. The plunder and ruin of every higher capability. 

Vance's Mamaw Was a Degraded Piece of Shit Bigoted White-Trash Redneck

And his mama was a slut. JD Vance is calling for less political correctness and coddling in the discourse. Fine with me ...

Skid Mark

Donald Trump is a stain on American history. He's a stain on human history. He's a stain on humanity. 

Trump the Revelator

Okay so let's give Trump credit where it's due. If a reeking pile of shit exists somewhere in human form he will sniff it out. And he will cultivate said turd and feed it turd food so that it gets bigger and reeks more. 

I don't know how he does it. Rot and growth shouldn't go together. But Trump accomplishes it somehow. There must be latent turd power he taps into. Or militant turd energy. He teaches turds to be contagious.

Trump to Stop Inflation With Magical Powers

Trump is promising magic in his second term. More Voodoo. Poof, poof and poof! Massive tax cuts. No talk of who will pay. Because nobody will pay. Which means average citizens will be left holding the bag. Again. Boom and then bust.

Trump promises peace. Too late for Gaza. He'll assign Kushner the cleanup. The rain in Ukraine will fall mainly on the plains instead of bombs. He will will it. And an instant halt to inflation. He'll order it. Inflation recognizes his authority. 

If it knows what's good for it. It's that thing he does with his hands. That weird back and forth movement. Call it quell. The smoothing into submission. The duping into compliance. The reassurance of turning everything over to Trump. 

So you won't have to worry anymore. Until it's too late. When you realize you've been had. Scammed, suckered and conned. Trump is so simple. So much is written and it's so simple. He's a liar, a grifter and a con man. The trickster is here. 

Naturally Dead

Death is natural. A limiting case thing but natural. After that, nothing. Or, whatever. So how bad is suffering?  This is all Republicans are saying. Suffering is inevitable. Life is a shithole. 

Get over it. They don't want to suffer. But since suffering is inevitable that leaves us. We must suffer to balance the books. Ukraine must suffer. Gaza. Gays. Somebody. Anybody but them.

The Lost Half-Century

There's going to be a hell of a hangover after this bender. Fifty years of Republicans screwing average Americans, coming to an end. It can't go on. They've fucked everything. 

They're still trying to guarantee innocent people pay the price and that they walk away. Or, fly away in a private jet. They really don't give a shit about anybody but themselves. 

Debby Downer

Notice how much news organizations love a natural disaster? A hurricane will always do. Dramatic pictures. Real estate destroyed. Maybe a few lives lost. 

Then notice how news organizations are always in disaster mode. They create disasters if they must. Or they enjoy symbiosis with a wrecking ball like Trump. 

Burn Before Reading

If rational, decent people ever recapture the political discourse in our society we can fully participate once again and take in a whole range of of stuff being said and reported. But, for now, most of what is coming from the right is so poisonous and harmful it's best to stay away. In other words, burn before reading. 

A Good Goombah

Mafioso, by reputation, are rational businessmen. Trump isn't that. He's so fucking needy everything is about him getting his strokes. Being a good goombah is tough in Trumpworld. You can be loyal and demean yourself and make it your only goal to please him and still get discarded or punished. 

Possibly for nothing, I'm saying, since part of Trump's failure is not knowing a good goombah when he sees one. He's out of touch with reality, impulsive as shit and a fuckup. Mostly the ultra-rich aren't seen crashing through life like Trump. Okay, maybe Elon. It's bad business. But Trump's a sick fuck.

Vance appears to be a good goombah. I'm sure it's why he was chosen. But when the whim of one wretched, unstable piece of shit is the law and standard anything can happen. 

Mostly Famous

Republicans are out for notoriety. Their 15 minutes or more. They don't care how they get it. The quickest route is acting out. And they don't give a shit how many people get hurt. 

The Parent Rap

J. D. Vance has some weird stuff going on regarding families That marriage and family are duties. And there's major baggage surrounding procreation. Why can't these people behave? Nothing was wrong here. But things that should be loving and spontaneous and free, one hopes, get burdened with guilt. 

Weighed down with necessity. Typically, they're tainting something possibly joyous, intimate and personal with odd societal demands. Like rebuilding a reich. They want a reich. Healthy and pure and freer from bad elements. Along the lines of Hungary. They want us emulating Hungary. Reducing us to that. 

They talk openly about it. I can't believe this is happening.

The Daily Planet

This will be the last issue of the Daily Planet. The planet is shutting down. We don't mean the periodical, we mean human civilization and the environment that sustained it. Shutting down because a relative handful of inconceivably rich people had to have more. 

Apparently they must always have more. The paper is secondary but we will miss it too. We're sad as shit about the whole thing but it seems we were no different from some mindless bug growing exponentially in its medium in a petri dish until they fucking died. 

I wonder if a massive minority of those organisms had a blast while their fellows starved or disgustedly watched them ravaging the place. Strange to think we were no different. And I wonder if some being has been watching us from above as we did the petri dish. 

Wondering what the fuck we were thinking. No Superman to save us now. Those who think they are super or aspire to be are the ones wrecking everything. I guess our assumptions about human nature were faulty. And all of the beauty made-up and an illusion. 

Not to discredit it. We should have appreciated it more. Appreciated everything more. Somebody said that once, that only the invented part made sense or meant anything, or words to that effect. He must have been right. At least he was on to something. 

All About Eve

I should probably stop because I'm not practicing but I still try to explain Catholicism sometimes, especially to southerners since many of them didn't grow up around Catholics. Catholicism is as strange to them as it was to me encountering early televangelists and being dumbfounded by how anyone could buy that shit and how in supposedly conservative churches women could show up looking like prostitutes.

Probably shouldn't have said that but, whatever. Anyway, I can tell how weirdly Catholicism appears to some folks because they can't hide it. And they jump immediately to the sex scandal, an admitted disgrace, so I should probably not even try but let's take celibacy. A practice or tradition and not biblical, granted. Of course it creeps them out. Whereas thoughts of a pastor having sex creeps me out. No win there. 

It's all plenty weird. I appeal to a larger perspective. 

I say there's a Catholic outlook about the richness of life that doesn't underplay sex. The idea is not against sex it's against self-centeredness and overweening individualism. Against taking things for granted. Focus, and the story of Eve. Eve was living in paradise and she got obsessed with the one thing she was told she couldn't have. Say it was sex. Say it was the power to create life. Say it was anything. 

Get a grip, Eve. So, the Catholic perspective, I tell people, is that we're living in a miracle. We should wake up every day in wonder and amazement. In awe. I want to say in gratitude but, no. I think it's one step removed from the more primal experience of astonishment at the strangeness and absurdity everyone must or should feel at emerging into consciousness. Existentially and on a daily basis. 

Sacrificing sex for some good ... not that big a deal.

The compensations have to be there. And they are, in the kind of Catholicism that's a form of art. In ritual and music and beauty. We are intended to live fully human lives, lives of immersion in our humanity -- not to deny our ties to God. We reach God through our created nature. The whole package. Emotions and intellect. Sadly, balance is out of fashion. Humans are on a huge power trip, wanting what is God's. 

Perspective is the point -- wide angle lens, soft focus. In a state of awe and wonderment things fall into place. Humility comes naturally. Respect come naturally. Empathy and compassion come naturally. And the pure, innocent, non-compulsive enjoyment of the good things of life comes naturally. Denying any of these isn't too big a deal, as matter of discipline or in maintaining a perspective. We should all fast. 

You first. And God bless. 

Semper Lie

Assume everything Republicans say is a lie. Sometimes it isn't but then it usually still supports the greater cause of obfuscation and deception. All will be clearer if you do this. Republicans try to destroy the truth. Any truth is inimical to them and a threat. They are attacking the very existence of intelligibility, because it implies accountability. And they don't want to be accountable for anything. 

The Death of Decency

Republicans are excited. They sense the end. Utter domination. The final victory. The enemy, a faction of their fellow citizens they deem unworthy, and a probable majority, is weak and possibly failing. 

Republicans are moving in for the kill. And they are killers. This will be the end of decency in America. The death of decency as an institutional matter. And the total victory of injustice, racism and hate. 

Nativist Sons

What is it with these sons of wealthy fathers -- Koch, Trump, Bush, and others of their awful kind. Always trying to prove something. And never succeeding which we know because they keep trying, taking their shit out on innocent bystanders. Bystanders to their family dramas. 

Poor spectators. Guiltless onlookers. These privileged sons of the powerful must be beset by feelings of worthlessness. I wish they would get the fuck over it. But they've all gone nativist. 

See No Evil

It's different when I do it. Say, 'this is evil.' Democrats don't want to say something is evil. Not quickly enough. Republicans are dying to do it. To say someone is evil. Too quick.

Democrats don't want to see evil. Republicans see evil everywhere. Republicans do it as a matter of identity and tribal allegiance. They are judging the person or people. 

Their being, in a way, or essence or existence.

Democrats are judging behaviors. Behaviors change. If the behavior changes the judgment changes. Not guilty. But you can't be not guilty of being black or gay, for example. 

They come at it from a racist outlook. And it fucks it all up. 

Donald Trump: Patriot and Altruist

I avoid seeing anything of the Republican convention but I think I heard a little of Vance's speech this morning on the radio. I believe Vance was portraying Herr Donald as a patriot and altruist who gave up a wildly successful business career to serve his country. 

And if you believe that I've got a Yale law degree I'll sell you cheap. Donald was the fucked-up son of an asshole developer. Daddy's daddy owned a hotel cum brothel. Vance's momma was a crack whore so you see the affinity. But even Trump portrayed himself as a dick. 

Think back. He postured himself as a ruthless, pragmatic businessman who'd be ruthless and pragmatic on our American behalf if elected. As though the country wasn't already run by ruthless asshole businessmen. His innovation was in admitting it so openly. 

But, altruist.

Even Trump's grand-daddy was a draft dodger. But it's not about reality. It's about the magic-dust of forgetfulness, which is presumably being spread through the ventilation and ductwork at the convention. This is of course about the Lost Cause.

The romanticizing of the hideousness and inhumanity of the Old South and slavery. The Big Lie filled the same brain space and fed the same emotional need for escape. Escaping the guilt and shame. And compensating, by portraying yourselves as better. 

Not just okay but cleansed. So they're 'saved' and we aren't. They're the patriots. They're the creators and we're the takers. They're real Americans and we aren't. Ah, forgetfulness. And lies. It's all about lies. And, at this point, a complete inversion of reality. 

Don't Make Me Laugh

Remember when Republicans could claim fiscal responsibility with credibility? That they were deficit hawks, for example? They were hawks alright. Predators that will fly in and steal your livelihood. 

What they stood for was us paying their bills. Has a nice ring, doesn't it? Free shit! For the haves. Average citizens subsidizing the rich. Modern serfdom. And they're still at it. They gamble. They lose, you pay.

And if they win they keep it all. They take it all. And then some. They've pillaged our savings and mortgaged our future. Our kids' future. Because they must always have more. Now and forever. Amen. 

Amen, because it's with religious sanction. Prosperity for them. Austerity for us. Divinely approved. God wants them to be predators. Made them carnivores. And us prey. Don't make me laugh. It's all lies.

Don't make me laugh. 

Turn Up, Tune Out, Drop In

Make yourself available. Ignore the noise. Show up, stay on message, stay involved and vote. Though I wouldn't blame you for doing it stoned. 

Tread on Them

The Republican convention is about unity through hate. 'Don't Tread on Me,' they say. 'Tread on Them' is the actual platform.