The Fix. (Or how fraud or election tampering laws don't apply to political parties, apparently.)

So… I was right.

I had bitter arguments with my peers and my wife over this.  I agonized about it because I knew the kind of beast Donald Trump was, and what he might do (and has done) to our country.  And when I voted, I abstained from the presidential election in protest at my disenfranchisement in the democratic primary.  I’d followed the news, done my research and was positive that Hillary Clinton had bought and paid for the DNC Primary, and had colluded with them to fix the primary election.  And I would not vote for a beast that was just as bad, if not more so.  Because like the beast that actually won, she does not believe that laws apply to her.  I agonized about this.  The subject of Hillary Clinton is still a sore spot in my house that my wife and I are bitterly divided upon.  Especially in the light of everything the criminal in the oval office has done since.

And I eventually started to doubt.  What if I’d been wrong?  Did I get trolled into helping hand the Beast the presidency?  Had I fallen victim to conspiracy theories posing as overwhelming evidence?  I thought I’d been so careful, vetting my sources and making sure to read the articles I’d shared.  The petitions I’d signed…  Had I been fooled on that massive a scale?  I felt ashamed.  I felt as though I’d sold my friends, loved ones and family into a fascist regime run by Neo-Nazis and oligarchs for nothing.  It was a creeping and nagging doubt.  And it festered.

And then this week, the replacement DNC Chair, Donna Brazile, who’d stepped in after former DNC Chair and Former Clinton Campaign Manager (2008), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz had stepped down in disgrace and scandal…  DNC Chair Donna Brazile breaks in a book one year later that I was right the whole time.  I wasn’t some misinformed ‘Bernie-Bro’ or conspriacy nut.  The Democratic primary had been fixed.  The Democratic National Committee had pretty much been bought by Hillary Clinton more than a year before the primary ever happened.  As far as the 2016 primary was concerned, the candidate had been coronated before Sen. Bernie Sanders ever announced his candidacy as a Democrat.  I suppose the plan was that they’d expected him to run as an independent; not split the party with a platform that was actually worth a damn to anyone but the 1%.

Ironically, the whole reason Sanders had run as a Dem was because he’d wanted to play it straight and fair.  He knew an independent wouldn’t be treated fairly in the press, or would be treated dismissively in that whole Kang and Kodos kind of way.  You know…  “GO AHEAD.  THROOOOWWW YOUR VOTE AWAAAY!”  Senator Sanders, like the rest of us, would seem to have fallen victim to the good faith idea that the Democratic party was as good as its word that all candidates would be treated impartially.  You know.  The recently proven doofy idea that the DNC had any intention of running its primary fairly.  Silly us, right?  What the actual fuck could we have been thinking, right?

That’s what the DNC seems to think.  Not half a year after the debacle that was the 2016 election, suit was brought against the DNC for running what seemed like a fixed primary.  The case was dismissed.  The DNC essentially strolled into court and said, “Yeah.  Even if we did fix things, and that’s not saying we did, but if we DID fix the election for Secretary Clinton, then it’s our right to do so.  We’re a private organization, and there’s no reason we can’t change rules on the fly or favor a candidate if we want to.  Even if we gave the good faith impression that we were running an impartial election.”  This was news to the millions of people who’d sent donations to the Sanders campaign.  You know.  Instead of buying food.   Or paying bills.  They’d felt this was pretty important, after all.  So you can understand their feeling a bit peeved at having been cheated of their money.  Or the rightful nominee.  You know.  One that polled as defeating Herr Drumpf by a margin of 10%.

Or better.

.
 Had this been a casino working with a rigged roulette board when people came in with the reasonable expectation of the game operating fairly, someone would still be sitting in prison afterward.  Apparently primary elections for the office of the President of the United States aren’t held to such a stringent standard.

So fuck me, right?  Fuck all of us.  Their clever little master-plan failed.  And aww shucks.  We’ve installed an incompetent robber-baron dictator, rapist and Nazi sympathizer in the oval office who’s treating the country like the unwilling victim of a hostile takeover by a corporate raider.  And just to rub a little salt in, Hills got defeated with a majority of the popular vote, but was cheated of the center seat by the same electoral foolishness she cheated Bernie with using the Democratic Superdelegates.  I know this because in December, there was still the opportunity for the superdelegates in the electoral college to award the presidency to Mrs. Clinton instead of the Beast.  To determine the outcome of the election by popular vote by expressing the will of the people instead of partisanship.  I wrote to several of them, who seemed scandalized that they’d be contacted in this fashion.

One from Texas said she’d pray for me.  That and 50 cents won’t buy me a cup of the fucks I give.

The blood of the resultant dead people is on their hands.  THEIR votes mattered.

Mine would not have.  Not in the election.  And certainly not in the democratic primary.  QED

 Make no mistake, I believe that this was planned well in advance of 2016 or 2015.  Hills’ running mate, Tim Kaine was once chair of the DNC.  After her loss to Mr. Obama in 2008, she caused her former campaign manager Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to be installed as DNC chair, which I believe Hill bought with the Kaine’s VP nomination in 2016.  Of course nowadays, The Debster is still gerrymandered into office down in Florida, and the subject of investigations dealing with her IT people exposing the entire information network of half of congress.  You know.  Her IT guy that tried to flee the country and got caught?  And let's not forget trying to interfere with the FBI investigations into that by demanding confiscated evidence and throwing her weight around.  Nice to see she’s keeping in skullduggerous fighting trim for 2018 I suppose.  It’s another thing to remember down the line when she’s next defending her incumbency. 

Meanwhile…

New York City admits to illegally purging 200,000 voters prior to the primary.  Which would have given the state to Bernie Sanders, and its resultant delegates. 

The class action case against the DNC by the voters who felt the primary was fixed was dismissed.  Though the judge welcomed them to try again should new evidence be brought to light.  In the wake of DNC Chair Donna Brazile’s revelation of the victory fund paperwork that showed her how drastically the primary was fixed for Hills, I expect a new lawsuit in 3… 2…  1… 

Senator Sanders recently chose instead to see to relief efforts in Puerto Rico instead of choosing to get lambasted by bitter Clintonistas at a women’s rally who don’t seem to think he has women’s best interests in mind. 

The DNC has gone on a purge of progressives in their ranks, driving out people who favored Sanders-esque policies or political planks.  Essentially, they’re doubling down on the strategy that lost them the white house to one of the most odious and hated individuals in US History.  And that takes some doing, let me tell you. 

The DNC is hemorrhaging membership, and there is talk of trying to build a new party to replace it that’s actually representative of their interests.  In 2015, before our darkest nightmares were even seriously considered as being able to achieve office, the GOP was pretty much perceived as being in disarray.  The GOP was supposed to be on the verge of cannibalizing itself in a civil war between its more sensible conservative base, and the tea party monster they created by pandering to the fundamentalist and radicalized portion of its base over the last 30 years.  What a difference a year makes, eh?  Now the DNC is in full-on civil war between the neo-liberals and the progressives they still must court if they have a prayer of any future success.  Somehow after the revelation of their duplicitous deceit, I think it’s going to be a lot harder than it ever was in the past to dupe us again.  All they can do is hold the current monster in office to our heads like a gun in a hostage situation like they did in 2016.  All the while whispering glibly… menacingly… “Have you seen the other guy?”

Yeah, we have.  And I hold you responsible.  You miserable oligarch motherfuckers.

The DNC is still in bad financial trouble with their war chest.  Oddly, no one seems to want to donate to them lately.  Heaven knows why.  Could it be that they’re perceived as untrustworthy or uncaring about their base?  Whatever could have given them that idea?  Somehow I don’t see this problem getting better.  I suppose if they’re still getting their marching orders from the Clintons after the loans they gave the DNC, they expect help from Wall Street.  Yeah.  Sure.  Wall Street’s loyalty to a party that on the surface is supposed to be against Wall Street is pretty solid, right?  I’m sure they’ll step right up out of patriotism and expect nothing in return.  Just like the Clintons fronted the loans to the DNC without any collateral or expectation of return.

Well… I suppose the expectation of return hinged on a win, didn’t it?

So in the end…  I was right.  The primary was fixed.  This feeling of dread that I was trolled wasn’t necessary.  The coronated CEO of the DNC tried to buy the election.  But hadn’t counted upon repulsing her base as badly as she did.  You know.  Those of us who might’ve had a problem with the subversion of the electoral process our government is based upon.  Those of us who didn’t want to see the continuance of milquetoast incrementalism into corporate feudalism.  The continued selling of our population into the prison industrial complex as a 21st century slave class.  The continued selling of our economy to the military industrial complex by fighting a never-ending war in the middle east like her mentor Dr. Kissinger might’ve.

Because she had to have it.  It was hers by right.  By hook or by crook, the presidency would be hers.  Damn the consequences.  Damn the possibility of what would happen if she failed.  In the game of thrones, you play to win, right?  She’d been denied her due once before.  She would not let it happen again.

Except we’re not theirs to buy.  We’re theirs to serve.  They serve at our pleasure.  Remember that.  And vote for those who will fix the atrocities to come.  Who will have your best interests at heart.  And be ready should they try to take it from you again.  They’ve cheated us badly this time.  They should count their lucky stars, as Lewis Black once said, that we haven’t risen up as one and slain them for it.  Instead they blame anyone but themselves, and purge us from their ranks, and cough up more press-friendly versions of the crap they tried to push on us in 2016.

Don’t let them.

Remember what they’ve done.

Don’t forget.

Remember remember the 5th of November.

Specifically, November 2018.  If we can break the back of the GOP in Congress AND the Red Dog Turncoats as well as the oligarchs in the DNC, we can turn President Fuckface Von Clownstick into a lame duck until we can oust or impeach him and his henchmen properly.

Our country isn’t dead yet.  We still have a chance to mitigate and reverse the damage done.

But we need to seize it.  And not be bullied into just as bad a decision on the other hand.

Don’t forget.

Remember.

I'm not the President today. And that's a good thing.

I'm feeling arrogantly misanthropic with, and darkly superior to a significant portion of my fellow man today.  I am not a likable creature right now.  I am mean and horrible, and have probably been reading a bit too much Transmetropolitan for my own good in a world like the one we live in.  It comes in my lesser moments when doing Tech Support for a living.  Case in point; the lady I got off the phone with a bit ago.  Ostensibly, she works with the software I support every day.  And as we’re in a list of her clientele, looking at the one name on the screen after narrowing it down with a search, she asks me,

“So what do I do now?”

I watch her mouse as it hovers over the person’s highlighted name.  I imagine her empty cow-eyed stare.  Hear her dead voice come out of her slack lips.  Her hopelessly blunt-hammered synapses continue stubbornly not to fire.

“Do you want to edit that account?”

“Yes.”

“What would make the most sense to do next?”

“I don’t know.”

Her mouse continues to point at the name in question.  There are at least three buttons on the screen to get her where she needs to go.  And that’s if she doesn’t want to just double click on the person’s name itself in the list.  She’s been provided with so many labeled and intuitive ways to achieve what she wants.   Were this an oncoming car, she’d have been roadkill by now.  If it were a snake it woulda bit her.  Quickly, Ma’am.  What if lives were at stake?

“So… with your mouse pointing at your person’s highlighted name, the only name in the list whose account you want to look at the details of, what do you normally do in this very same situation?”

“I don’t know.” she repeats.

And there it is.  My respect and patience for humanity slips another notch.  My caller hasn’t called to learn how to do the operation she originally wanted for help with.  She wants it done for her.  It’s too hard.  Hard stuff is too hard.  She’s checked out.  Slipped her gears into neutral and gone coasting.  I have to imagine this is her defense mechanism.   Something that kicks in whenever she’s confronted with the myriad of things she doesn’t understand or want to have to think about.  I can hear her slack jawed voice uttering the words in my head.  “It will not go.”  And lazily implores me from the well of her being.  Packlid-like, she dimly knows something is wrong, but cannot form the coherent thought to express what it is.  She just wants this to be over.  “You are smart.  Can you make it go?”

My compassion falls away like the solid boosters on the space shuttle as my disgust and my gorge fire upward.  If she’s not listening and just wants an operator to make her hands go, then my willingness to engage with her as a person goes away too.  “Double click on the name if you’d like to edit it, ma’am.” I say robotically.  Our interaction turns machinelike.  She is wasted flesh, obeying my commands.  An extension of my will.  “Click on the thing.  Click on that box.  Enter in the appropriate numbers.  You will have to do the math for that person’s remaining balance.  Yes I understand it’s difficult, Ma’am.”  I stop short of apologizing for the inconvenience.  I’m not sorry.  I want her to understand that her ignorance is suffering.  Her incompetence is not cute or funny.  It’s sickening.  Try not to let her willfully stupid attitude touch you, man.  It’s Friday.  Another few hours and you won’t have to deal with these people for a few days.

Then you get a whole new week of this crap.

This is how tyrants get elected.  This is how the thousand little indignities visited upon us are carried out; by vapid guile-less drones paid to do and not think.  Told what to do and not to think.  The perfect modern feudalist serfs.  They do what they’re told to.  Buy what they’re told to.  Vote for who they’re told to by their democratically elected sovereigns.  Their god’s in his heaven, and all is right with the world.  Someone else needs to take care of things for them.  Don’t make them think.  Stuff is hard.  Someone who knows stuff should be making the decisions.  “Just tell me what to do.” they plaintively whine.  “Oh I don’t bother with instructions.  I wouldn’t understand it anyway.  How come it doesn’t just work?  Can’t you do it for me?  Why not?  I’m not a computer person.  Isn’t that funny?”

And at this point, I feel it would be a bad thing for me to be President. Who’d want to lead a country full of brain-dead cattle?  Who’d want to be the person who has to think for the teeming legions of philistines; not only content with, but proud of  their ignorance. I can imagine herding them down killchutes into abbatoirs towards people with ballistic-loaded sledgehammers and rotary razor-threshers. I can imagine the hungry automatic car-wash roar of the machines; cycling up to flense the flesh from their bones as they walk face first into the blades. Some cry as they go.  Lowing for their next order or command...

But they go none-the less.  They shake their heads and wonder why someone hasn’t done something about all this.  Something here is wrong, but they’re incapable of understanding what.  Their practiced inability to comprehend finally fails to result in someone else thinking or fixing things for them.  Self-lobotomized with their critical thinking faculties destroyed, they process through into the only fit end for cattle.  Some even wave flags for the cameras as Paul Mauriat’s ‘Love is Blue’ serenely drips from hidden speakers throughout.  What’s a few shreds of fabric and splinter in the leftover meat between friends, yes? 
 
And I feel badly and sick with myself for such horrific frustration and anger.  And then I’m mad at them all over again for feeling badly on their ill-deserved behalf.  This existentialist dread of my fellow humans.  Their willful inability to think is not my responsibility to feel compassion for.  You can lead a jackass to water, but you can’t make him think.  At some point, they need to engage too.  We’re loaded down with them.  Half consumed by them.  Pinks.  Insensate food-chutes merely acting out some super-evolved version of searching out carbohydrates and proteins in the primordial ooze.  Held back.  Trapped in a world with them.  So many opportunities to learn.  So many dumbed-down ways to get where they want to go, what they want to eat and what they need to see to pacify and placate them.  So little understanding of how any of it works.  Just this desperate need that someone else do the thinking and make it all right.

I’m sick with it today.

I need to get out of this line of work.  It's making me mean.

Well... that ship has certainly sailed, hasn't it?

If A = B, and B = C, then A = C, does it not?  With a gerrymandered set of voting districts, helped along by a corrupt election process, abetted by our corporate oligarchy who want to be able to keep buying easily corrupted incumbents, we now have more than a 50% majority in our legislative branch of Republicans.  These creatures have not impeached the monster in the oval office, though impeachable crimes exist.  The monster has just unmasked himself as a nazi sympathizer.  By their inaction, not impeaching the monster makes these creatures nazi sympathizers by association.

Therefore, half our country's controlling bodies of government are controlled by nazi sympathizers.

Now see, here's what he SHOULD have said...

SUNDAY. AUGUST 13th 2017, 8 PM EST

We interrupt this broadcast for an address from the President of the United States.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ladies and gentlemen of the United States of America.

It is my sad duty to inform you that as of yesterday, a terrorist attack was carried out during a traitorous demonstration in Charlottesville, VA yesterday.  Many of you will disagree with my terminology, and my intended response to said attack.  But let's get a few things clear right now, for the slow learners and the ignorant among us.

Firstly, in the 19th century, the southeastern states in our union illegally attempted to secede from our nation.  These states, who took arms against the rest of their country in order that they should retain the right to buy and sell their fellow human beings as slaves were defeated.  Since then, a vocal faction of our populace in those states has petulantly fought every advance for human rights in those states.  They have since wrapped themselves in the traitorous flag of oppressors and called it racial pride, and defended their right to terrorize their fellow Americans with all the symbolism the confederate flag implies.  Today, their brethren have disguised themselves in white inquisitorial robes to hide their identities, and justified the burning of crucifixes and the lynching of their fellow Americans.  And they have done so behind the aegis of free speech, as guaranteed by the First Amendment of our country's constitution; a document their beloved ancestors forswore more than a century ago.

Secondly, in the 20th century, the entire world roused itself to war in order to contain, defeat and eliminate the fascist nationalist threat posed by the German Nazi Party.  These were people who were guided by a 19th century misinterpretation of the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin that put forward that 'the lesser races of mankind' needed to be cleansed and eliminated from the world in favor of their 'aryan master race'.  They managed to murder over 14 million people before they were done.  They were bigoted fascists and attempted to eliminate whole races and ethnicities within the human race.  They have been the undisputed face of evil in the modern world since before I was born.  So much so that the world united in order to eliminate the threat of their poisoned philosophy.  This would be a philosophy so reviled in our history that its practitioners have since attempted to hide and rebrand themselves as the 'alternative right' in our society.  This is a pathetic insult to our intelligence as a people.  Especially when there are still those among us that remember having to fight them 75 years ago.

Are we clear on that?  The confederates were traitorous criminals who took arms against the United States in defiance of basic human rights guaranteed in our constitution in order to preserve slavery.  The Nazis were fascist nationalist supremacist murderers to the degree that they've been THE face of evil around the world for the last 75 years.  Specious bigots may want to argue semantics at this point, but really, that's what my message boils down to.  And with the weight of history and all of their murder victims on my side, I think I'm unlikely to be dissuaded from this point.  If they want to deny the Nazi's part in the holocaust, or the rightness of our cause in the Civil War, or World War II, I invite them to take a little trip to Arlington Cemetery in the company of some of our distinguished military veterans and say it to their faces.  And I'll tell you right now.  I will issue a presidential pardon to ANY soldier who feels offended enough to physically offer a non-lethal counter-argument surrounded by his fellows in Arlington.

Now that we're clear on a few points, it is now my sworn duty and privilege to execute a particular part of my oath of office.  As we now have domestic groups and organizations identifying themselves with the Nazi Swastika and the Confederate Flag that are carrying out acts of terror and violence against their fellow Americans; Under powers granted to me by the USA PATRIOT act, I now authorize the attorney general, and the FBI to consider the Ku Klux Klan and any nationalist white supremacist group to be terrorist organizations, subject to surveillance and investigation for possible threats.  Individuals displaying these terrorist insignia, may be added to "no-fly" lists, and will be disqualified from military or public service.  And these individuals will certainly have any permits for weaponry or arms revoked in perpetuity.  If you're going to self-identify as a Nazi or with people guilty of hate-crimes and murder?  I believe gun ownership is a little too much responsibility for you.  Ya think?  At this point, the rest of us get to consider that you are judgementally impaired, and a threat to your fellow humans.

This is not meant to invoke emergency powers and declare some kind of fascist state of martial law.  I need the American public to understand.  We are facing a dedicated program of infiltration of our law enforcement, and military forces by terrorist organizations wrapping themselves in the kind of poisoned patriotism that victimizes, tortures and murders people that don't agree with their worldview.  These are not uneducated  backwoods people that don't know any better.  They are teachers, businessmen, deacons in our churches, judges, governors and congressmen.  They are people who have seen our country's declared thesis that we are all equal, and rejected it completely.  This is not some propagandized demonization of a race, or philosophy based on hate-fueled disinformation.  These are people who have killed within the borders of our country while raising the Nazi salute.  These are actual seig-heiling, swastika wearing, salute throwing white-supremacist Nazis.  And given that their endgame is always going to be totalitarian genocide, their diseased philosophy has no place within our country. 

Directing my words to these terrorists, let me be clear.  And I say this in my capacity as the elected leader of this country.  So my opinion on the matter is something of a qualified one when I say this to every white supremacist, neo-nazi, klan member or whatever poisonous bigotry you subscribe to.  This is not your land.  You gave up that claim when you took arms against your former fellow Americans, assaulted, injured and killed them.  These are the very definitions of terrorist acts.  And I will do everything in my power to ensure you are defined in our country as domestic threats and enemy combatants.  You are murderous traitors to your people and your country, and I will treat with you as such.

Understand.  I'm not merely defending people of color, or our LGBT brothers and sisters.  I'm not taking sides against white people.  And by now I hope you'd all know me well enough to know that I'm not siding with any specific religion against Christianity.  I imagine many of those I'll never be able to reach might regard me as a 'race traitor' or 'heathen'.  If it puts me on the other side of the ideological divide from Nazis, I'll wear those epithets with pride.  I'm doing my job here.  I literally swore I'd do this on a copy of Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos' when I took office.  I'm defending Americans against Nazis.  What's more ideologically right and just than stamping out bigoted totalitarian fascists in the name of freedom and justice?

Do you see how easy that was, Ladies and Gentlemen of the United States?  I'm the president of the United States of America.  I am hemmed in by all manner of issues of protocol and political correctness.  And I just came up here on international television and denounced White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Clan as terrorists and murderers. 

Now naturally, I have ridiculous amounts of security protecting me.  So I can say things like that with impunity.  Not so easy when you're just someone who may live in a place like Charlottesville where you literally have white shirts and white hoods strolling around with guns in your streets.  I intend to do something about that part.  But it's not just on me to fix this.  We need to come together as a people and uniformly decree that murderous bigots don't just to get to wrap themselves in the Nazi flag, dress up in inquisitorial robes, and call it free speech when you terrorize, hurt or kill your countrymen.  We can give this enemy of our most highly held ethics no shelter.  We can give them no succor.  If they want to be enemies of our way of life, we can give them no opportunity to grow and spread their poisoned foolishness.

I encourage the victims and the people of Charlottesville to email any pictures they took of the protesting Nazis, Klansmen and White Supremacists to an address that will be provided on a special counter-terrorist site we will be setting up for this particular purpose.  We will be cross-referencing  this information with our law enforcement databases.  If evidence of a crime was committed, I encourage the attorney general and the FBI to act on it.  I encourage our state and local police forces to crack down on it.  I want pictures of these terrorists with the torches and the swastikas online where they can be identified by the public, and employers and law enforcement.  I want pictures of these Nazis and Klansmen so that they can publicly stand behind their stated convictions.  And *I* want to publicly denounce them by name. 

I want to make sure that when they go to work tomorrow that their dirty little secret is blown.  I want them to feel the disapproving stares of their friends and co-workers.  I want them out of work and unable to find new employment.  I want them living hand to mouth, and unable to support their hateful little hobby at our expense.  I want them with no sense of empowerment or vindication.  I want them to know what real persecution actually feels like.  Not this privleged version of the idea they seem to have inherited from ignorant bigots.  I want them to know what it feels like to have every hand against them.  I want no hiding place for these terrorists in our society.  I want them to enjoy no comfort, guarantee or feeling of security in a society whose values they have rejected.

This is not their country.  If I have my way, they'll have no country.  And good riddance.

These groups are not going to sit down with us and sing Kumbaya.  These enemies of the American people are not interested in making nice with us.  They want us gone and dead.  The core of their philosophy is the elimination of what they consider lesser species so that they have more resources for themselves.  We can try to stretch out a hand to them once more.  And as history has shown us, they will smile and hide behind their robes and the costumes they wear; the costumes they put on when they're not being murderous bigots and pretend to be like the rest of us.  And they will wait as they always seem to do until they're feeling emboldened once more, and someone dies.  Tolerance is a two-sided conversation.  Tolerance is a pact we make as a people to live with one another in peace by trying to understand one another.  If these people have no interest in living tolerantly with us, then we as a people need to tear out this infestation by its roots.  And this time, we make sure the words 'never again' mean something.

The murderers, fascists, and white supremacist nationalists would seem to have made their choice and sided with the most undeniable evil we, as human beings have thus far managed in modern history.  And we need to show them that this choice comes with consequences in the land of the equal, the free and the brave.

Thank you for your time, my fellow citizens.  As ever, thank you again for the opportunity to serve as your president.  Good night.

The Neolibs Are Starting A Bit Early This Election Cycle.

"Dear Liberals and Independents.  We need you to start lowering your standards now.  Just get on top of that shit early!"

I'm seeing this defeatist lily-livered Neolilberal bullshit post making the rounds that starts 'Dear Liberals and Independents.' wherein we are advised to start lowering our standards now for whatever Hillary-Lite corporate shill the DNC manages to cough up in 2020.  Here's the doofy thing for your amusement and/or disgust...

 

You know... ideas you might not agree with or be uncomfortable with like perpetual war in the middle east, no increase in your minimum wage, accepting the status quo as far as healthcare, educational debt, selling our democracy to the oligarchs piecemeal instead of all at once, having a different leader that laws don't apply to instead of the one we have now, only capable of calculated damage instead of flinging his ire about like a gorilla on butyl nitrate and PCP. 

So I'm just supposed to forget that the DNC fucked our country down the river without lube, disenfranchised us, committed voter fraud, rewrote rules on the fly to keep votes for Senator Sanders from counting, basically ADMITTED to fixing the DNC primary to prop up a relic of the Clinton 90's who polled as losing to a monster to keep out grassroots people like Sanders or any other candidate.  I'm supposed to be fine with not being excited about Senator Clinton Lite (D-CA) when the best possible thing the DNC can cough up is "Have you seen the other guys?"?

 

 I figured I'd do up my own little letter to the Liberals and the victims of the DNC in response...

Be ready...

You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain.

The title of our article here is from another fictional politician.  In this case, City Attorney General Harvey Dent of Gotham City.  Or for fans of the Batman, Two-Face.  He's rather a rather tragic character.  A man of noble intent fallen to depravity and madness.  A hero turned villain.

John McCain is not a hero.  He is a survivor of war, and let's be clear, I can appreciate that sacrifice.  I would not have stood up under the torture he has endured most likely.  But I feel he has nullified his worth as a human being, and expunged any meaningful sacrifice he's contributed on behalf of his countrymen with this week's traitorous, cowardly and hypocritical act of passive violence.

In effect, he has become a failed mass murderer.

This week, in the latest of misguided attempts to repeal the healthcare of literally tens of millions of his fellow citizens, John McCain took time out from his treatment to go back to Washington DC.  This was treatment for Brain Cancer, mind you.  I mean we knew he was acting erratically over the last month or so.  And when he was diagnosed with cancer on his brain, many came out in support of the war survivor.  My very first reaction was horror.  I've known someone who developed brain cancer.  It was an ignoble and undignified end that was the unkindest sort of death I can imagine.  There were outpourings of sympathy for Mr. McCain in recognition of his service to our country.  Clearly, these must have offended his literally diseased brain.  What leads me to that conclusion, you might ask?

"I've been a bad senator..."

Well, in the face of a life threatening illness, whereupon a normal human creature might be expected to experience a moment of clarity, or even solidarity with his similarly afflicted or suffering humans, John McCain did not in fact decide that the millions of Americans paying for his brain cancer treatment might get a little bit of quid pro quo.  He did not support our people as they were expected to support our troops or the criminal in the white house whom I will not call our President.  He instead found more sympathy with our current corrupt and broken government.  I suppose that can be understood.  A diseased brain might find sympathy with the cancerous growth in our oval office instead of the people he purportedly represents.

So interrupting his publicly funded brain cancer treatment...  one that I might add runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars... he took his time out from that to fly across the country with stitches in his head and return to congress so that he might vote in favor of a repeal of legislation that protects the healthcare of more than one-hundred million people.

And make no mistake, the fellow knew that doing so would likely give the for-profit insurance industry leave to strip a quarter of those hundred million Americans of their access to medical care.  Virtually ensuring that a significant portion of them will die of preventable, diagnosable diseases and conditions.  Even if only 1% of that number actually die as a result, that still effectively kills two-hundred and fifty thousand people. 

For methods of illustration, the current population of Phoenix, Arizona is one million six-hundred thousand souls.  So to take the murderer comparison a little further, what Mr. Braincase just voted for (if indeed 1% of the population will surely die as a result of their insurance being taken away) is roughly equivalent to his being entirely okay with taking a stroll around his own state's capitol and stabbing every 6th person he meets in the guts. 

Now that doesn't make him Adolph Hitler.  Heavens no.  That particular mass murderer killed something on the order of 14 million people in the end.  But the portion of that number the nazis killed that were just people with disabilities in institutions was...  drum roll please... two-hundred and fifty thousand people.  So really... where is the point at which Senator Braincase stops being a War Hero and starts being a Mass Murderer?

They're both entirely fine with killing their own people.  McCain voted yes with the intention of the bill passing and those people becoming dead.  If you want to argue that two-hundred and fifty thousand people isn't as bad as 14 million, where's the cutoff?  How many dead people does it take?  Does that number go down significantly if it's people you love and care for being left to die?  Or is it only okay if his victims are people you don't know?  What if it was only one person, but it was your kid?  Or your spouse?  Or your mom?  Would that be better?  How many dead people is too many?  Where is your line in the sand, dear reader? 

So...  Voting to kill only a quarter million people doesn't make him a Nazi...

But goddammit, he's trying.

Let's be clear and say it again for the people in the cheap seats.  With foreknowledge that his fellow Americans would die if McConnell's repeal bill went to the creature in the oval office, he voted yes that it proceed.  And this doesn't make him unique.  It puts him, 49 of his Republican accomplices and the fundamentalist waste of flesh calling itself our Vice President in solidarity.  They know exactly what this bill will do.  And they cannot pretend they don't know how many their bill will kill.  The figures and estimates have been shouted, emailed, phoned and protested at them for the weeks and years it's been since the GOP started their repeal efforts while Mr. Obama was still in office.  At least when you can find them.  Many have stopped attending town halls and public meetings for what they say is their own safety.  Wow... really?  One might think your constituents are displeased with attempts on their lives.  I know we certainly can't get hold of Tillis (R) and Burr (R) here in NC.

So let's drop any pretense here.  Every attempt to repeal the law that safeguards the healthcare of Americans from being savaged by the insurance industry has been an attempt on human lives.  The insurance industry is paying them unheard of amounts of money to make it happen.  The personal culpability of these creatures masquerading in human skin is not negligible.  If repealed, then these monsters and their insurance industry paymasters are responsible for every untreated illness, disease and cancer that kills someone that could have been saved otherwise.  Maybe he sees himself as an agent of God.  The second horseman of the apocalypse, Pestilence.  Only instead of going out and literally striking people down with plague, he's just taking away their healthcare and racking up victims by attrition.

There's a kid with brain cancer whose picture is being bandied about on Facebook this week.  (And that'll teach me not to snag stuff like that when I see it.  2 days later and it's GONE.  My search-fu is not strong this morning.)  They've got him side by side with John McCain's picture.  The caption lets us know the only difference between him and John McCain is that McCain has health insurance.  In my head, there's no difference between taking away the kid's insurance and John McCain walking into the kid's hospital room and blowing his brains out with a .50 caliber Desert Eagle.  In both instances, the kid is just as assuredly dead.  And it makes John McCain a murderer of men, women and children.  As well as Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and every representative and senator that raised their hands and went on record that some Americans just don't deserve to live as much as others.

Yeah, fellas.  I agree.  And if we could switch your places with your intended victims, I'll count the rest of the country has having got a bargain.  

======================================================================

UPDATE:  The repeal measure failed in the senate.  45 other would-be murderers also voted for it.

Something has survived...

I'm hearing low key rumblings that Mrs. Clinton is going to want to run again in 2020.  Or at least that they're looking for the next great unpenised candidate to offer that doesn't have Hillary Clinton's stink of failure all over her.  (but is still establishment enough to satisfy the donors.)  And in the general terror and horror at the actions of the criminal in the White House and all his henchmen, the dems are flailing about like kids who know what they did was wrong, but are unable to admit to it or own what they did.

Clinton herself said: : "I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey's letter on Oct. 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me and got scared off."  Sen. Chuck Schumer just chucked her under the bus according to CNN.  As though the two weren't aiding and abetting her and the DNC's theft of the 2016 Democratic primary themselves.  Softballing her and 'ramming her down our throats', to use some other sleazebag in government's unfortunate turn of phrase.

And they're hoping that we've already forgotten.  You know.  The entire time they're pointing at the human rights abuses the GOP is trying to ram into law while the rich old bastards have the opportunity, and all the 'Third Way' dems are literally saying is "Have you SEEN the other guys?" 

Yeah. 

We have. 

We're aware. 

"You ruined a perfectly good ass!  That's what!  Look at it!"

However, we're not looking for "All-New Fresh-Faced Republican-Lite with all of the Oligarchy. Now with 5% less Old White Bigots!" just because we have a literal traitor, rapist, bigot, Nazi supporter and human rights abuser in the White House.  Just because you promise not to knife us in our guts doesn't mean we'd rather you kick us in the balls as an alternative.  We'd rather you not hurt us at all.  We'd like you to speak for us.  Represent us.  Help us.  Promote the general freakin' welfare and public good here.  We're hurting.  We want you to be there for us.

I still despise Hillary Clinton.  And no it's not cos she's a woman.  (I'd take Tulsi Gabbard any day in her place.)  No it's not because of her emails, though that spoke to a larger problem that does concern me.  One very large problem that our current despot is more guilty of than she is... but not much more.  She does not believe the law should apply to her.  And that's just as dangerous for different reasons.  The establishment dems want to take our fear and loathing for Herr Drumpf and turn it into a groundswell for their brand of fascism instead of his.

And they're hoping we will forget that she is pretty much the perfect figurehead for their Third Way-ist bullshit.  Someone who can 'evolve' to be anything necessary to whatever gets them what they want.  No sincerity required.  No actual beliefs or morals necessary.  Someone who can keep the spice flowing and the great unwashed grassroots candidates out of the clubhouse.  You know.  The people who actually want to represent us.  We had someone like that.  The Dems fixed their race and primaried him.  They weren't interested.  They're hoping you're going to forget that.  Don't.

Remember.

I remember the debates where she styled herself as tough on terror by promising us and the Military Industrial Complex another war in the middle east.  I remember her name-checking her good friend and mentor, the War Criminal Dr. Henry Kissinger as though any sane person might think that was a GOOD idea.  I remember all those little whistle stops she made while she pounded the neoliberal pulpit where she tried to adopt focus grouped accents and idioms in order to 'relate and appeal' (TM DNC 2016) to the people there.  I remember how she tried to appropriate and make herself the Latino voting community's 'Abuela'.  I remember how she tried to court the black vote with one hand while taking money from the for-profit prison industry that's enslaving people of color and want the status quo maintained.

I remember how badly she treated Mr. Obama in 2008 and how sleazily she smeared and slandered him.  I remember how very vehemently she was against Mr. Obama before she  desperately tried to attach herself to his outgoing coat-tails in 2016 in hopes that some of his hard-won success would rub off.  I remember how her main supporters in 2016 were the prison industrial complex; as well as Time-Warner and Turner/CNN that abetted the media blackout of Senator Sanders' campaign.  I remember how insulted I felt by what I perceived to be a false and patronizing pseudo sincerity.  I remember seeing the ongoing jokes about her on Saturday Night Live where she had to assure us that she was an actual living breathing human creature and not a robot programmed to regurgitate badly learned accents and oligarchy talking points.  Which would have been a lot more funny had it not been actually terrifying.  I remember how she condescended to me regarding my fervent hope that I'd get to vote for someone that wasn't her.  I remember how she assumed it would be a coronation in 2016 instead of an election. 

"Don't just TELL us shit like that.  You need to learn to lie to us better!"  -Lewis Black

I remember the former DNC chair and former Clinton campaign manager from the failed 2008 election, Debbie Wassermann-Schultz, (Who knew a thing or two about fixing her own elections down in Florida as it turns out.) talking about how it was their primary and they'd fix it however they damn well pleased for whomever she pleased.  How DW-S limited the number of debates to a shameful few in 2016, as they realized the more exposure the public got to Hillary's opponent, Bernie Sanders, the worse things got for the Clinton campaign.  How they planted people with scripted questions for Hillary to answer during the debates.  How they softballed her while grilling Mr. Sanders.  And if you want an example of how hell bent the DNC was on having Mrs. Clinton elected, Consider who her vice-presidential pick was.  Tim Kaine was the FORMER DNC head.  The one that stepped down in favor of Mrs. Clinton's former campaign manager; current-former disgraced DNC Head, Debbie Wassermann Schultz.

I remember how she got a guilty child rapist exonerated during her time as a lawyer in the 70's and laughingly joking that she'd never trust a polygraph test again.  I remember how her supporters were okay with that because she was a lawyer and could have been disbarred otherwise.  (Ya know... had she chosen disbarrment to secure the rapist's conviction instead of having the child's bloody panties dismissed as incriminating evidence, I'd have found her a perfectly acceptable person to consider for office.)  As though that made what she did entirely okay because the law is broken.


I remember how the person in the New York primaries in 2016 who was mostly responsible for people's registrations getting lost or changed without their permission? I remember how that person later ended up with a house in connection with someone in the Clinton campaign.  I disremember whether that person saw jail time or not.  I remember Clintonistas in the caucuses in the flyover states getting caught in the act of losing Sanders ballots, or trying to trick people into signing for Clinton illegally or invalidating their own votes.  I remember Nancy Pelosi and DNC bigwigs during the Nevada primary changing the rules RIGHT THERE and setting up a picket line of policemen for the Berners that they'd disenfranchised on the spot in 2016.  How if they didn't put their Bernie signs away, they were threatened with arrest.

I remember how on multiple occasions, the Clintons showed up within illegal distance of the polling places at multiple primaries.  I remember that they pulled so many dirty tricks out of the republican play book that I imagined that Karl Rove was checking his own security to see if he'd been burgled or hacked.   A different 'unfortunate' circumstance went down in EVERY state so the DNC could point at them and start chanting "UNRELATED INCIDENTS.  UNRELATED INCIDENTS" in a zen state of plausible deniability.

I remember how Mrs. Clinton was for DOMA before she was against it.  I remember how she was for NAFTA before she was against it.  I remember how she was for the TPP as the 'gold standard' for trade agreements before she was against it.    I remember how she was for the Citizens' United decision in the SCOTUS that has all but destroyed our election process with the influx of money from the corporations. I remember that she sat on Wal-Mart's board of directors at the point where it started to turn into one of the biggest exploiters of the lower class in the world and destroyers of local economies.  I remember Mrs. Clinton appealing to the coal lobby and snubbing the Detroit water crisis as not being sexy enough for the news cycles at the time in 2016.  I remember how she fought so hard to keep what she said to Wall Street out of the public eye.  I remember the firsthand accounts of how she treated her secret service people and the people working for her. 

But most of all, I remember the polls during the 2016 democratic primary.  I remember how they showed her losing to Fuckface Von Clownstick the Terrible, while Mr. Sanders won by a more than 10 point spread.  I remember writing open articles and signing petitions asking that the DNC PLEASE endorse Mr. Sanders and that Mrs. Clinton step down.  I remember Sanders being an assured win, and Mrs. Clinton being an entirely likely loss not for just America, but for the world in the face of the beast she'd lose to.  I remember Mrs. Clinton having a choice.  The facts were before her.  She could've put the needs of our country and the world before her ego and conceded to the candidate America clearly wanted. 

Or she could have lied.  Cheated.  Rigged primaries.  Ignored the danger.  Blacked out her opponent.  Appropriated cultural identities.  Denied public access to her records.  Engaged in under the table DNC Nepotism.  Positioned herself as being for everything Bernie was, except not.  Attempted to steal Mr. Sanders' platform and watered it down so as to be inoffensive to the corporate interests that owned her.  Told us that our needs were unrealistic and specious.  Ignored our crises, chronic injuries and beloved dead.  Promised us war instead of general welfare.  Denied us salient and meaningful debate.  Denied and disenfranchised us of our vote.  Broke the law.  Held herself unaccountable to the law.  But aside from all that, she decided to hold human life, development and history itself hostage.  She held Herr Drumpf to all of our heads like a gun and demanded that we give her what she wanted or people would die.

And when the worst possible, yet entirely predictable thing happened... she went away.  For a while.  She receded like the plague and blamed anyone and everyone she could for her misfortune, and owned none of the responsibility for her actions.  She was indeed cheated of the presidency, just as she'd cheated Sanders of the primary.  Ironically enough, by the same methods.  And per usual, she accepted it, despite a popular lead of 3 million votes and didn't press the issue.  She didn't fight for it.  And in the end, showed herself to be the milquetoast corporate bureaucrat we knew her to be anyway. 

And after laying low...  after personally enabling one of worst possible people in history to gain the Presidency by not conceding to the better candidate...  now she's hinting she's going to try again?  After all we've been through.  After all the pain and blood and murder in the beast's wake so far, all the DNC can do is cough up or excrete more people that are acceptable to the companies instead of the people?  After all that, they're hinting that they want to do it all over again?

Fuck you.

Will no one rid me of these troublesome oligarchs?

I Aim to Misbehave. (Or... "A lovely little political fantasy.")

"Right now I'd like to do my Joe Isuzu impression.  I impression Joe the best.  He's my new secretary of transportation."

So I just imagined a thing.  It made me very, very happy.  I'll imagine neat little scenarios like these to amuse myself when I hear the news sometimes.  It's a fun game to play in the car if I'm listening to the news.  "Now here's how I'd have addressed congress, dumbass.  Here's how you do this-"  It's a healthy mental exercise for an actor.  Practicing one's skills with public speech and oratory is never a bad idea.  I'm sure you know of at least one politician right now who could stand to practice a bit in that regard.  It also helps to see if there's a facet of current events I'm not thinking of, or if I'm thinking of it, can I come at it more intelligently than the regime du jour.


Now... I'm not sure what the rules are in congress for creating a disruption during a presidential address.  I'm sure I get escorted out.  But I'm pretty sure I could ensure my re-election with a simple outburst.  Just wait for a nice opportune time while Cheeto Von Clownminge is saying something particularly untrue, patronizing and disrespectful to the suffering of our countrymen.  And then do one of those high school *COUGH-BULLSHIT!* at the top of my lungs.  Then apologize quite loudly.  "So sorry!  I've got a terrible alternative cough!  Also, that was an alternative apology!"

"Ah do believe he's comin' down with a case a' th' vapours!"

What's the rest of congress going to do?  Send me a sharp note?  I'll cop to it.  Sure.  "We are very very upset that you behaved this way during the presidential address.  It was disrespectful in the extreme, and reflects poorly on the district that elected you.  Professional congressmen do not act this way."

Oh yeah?  My official public statement on the 'incident' would need to be, "Professional congressmen nowadays are gutless profiteers who are only concerned with getting re-elected, and how much they can sell their vote to the corporations for on any given issue.  I called the president on a lie and I'm not sorry about it.  Get bent.  I'd also like to say to congress, get bent.  As well, I'd like to ask my fellow congressmen who signed onto this censure to get bent.  And one more thing.  And I am now addressing both the president and his cowardly appeasers.  Get bent.

"Impeach me if it suits you.  I misremember if it's legal to impeach someone for hurting your feelings and calling someone on a lie.  I'll show you proof the president was lying.  All I need is an internet connection and a few more brain cells than the president.  Two ought to do. 

"And unlike hurting your feelings, lying to congress IS a crime.  More interesting still, you don't even have to be under oath for that.  But what's a little swearing between government representatives, eh?  It was good enough to impeach Mr. Clinton, wasn't it?  So how about we start swearing in the president so that he has to give his addresses under oath?  Presumably he swore an oath when he took office, but we've seen how serious he takes that.  How about we make him swear an oath with some consequences in it should he lie to our faces again?  And if he doesn't WANT to swear an oath, why should I trust a damn thing he says?  Was his intention to come up here and lie a lot, and now he has to rethink his speech?  Yes or no question.  Would the president care to deliver his address under oath so that we may be sure of the truth of his statements?  I await his reply.  Yes or no, Mr. President.  Yes or no.  Trustworthy or lying coward, Mr. President.  Which is it?

"Oh.  And in closing...  Get bent."

I can hear my wife even now.  "THAT'S A MICHAELS FRAME!"

Assuming no term-limit reforms, I'd be re-elected into my 90's

One For the History Books. But Probably Not the One We Wanted...

It came up a little earlier today for me.  A writer friend of mine posted a tweet about a thing I've wondered about frequently about our current America.  (see below)  And I do wonder about how history will remember us. I'm thinking those of us presently alive and drawing breath will be remembered unkindly. Not for being fascists. But for putting up with the current fascists we have for so long. I wondered this weekend how Herr Fuckstick von Clownminge thinks he will be remembered. I mean on some level, he has to know that he will be reviled. Like Adolf Hitler reviled. A historical example of how not to human being.

I mean we got a nice period of prosperity for a while here in the US. After WWII, Korea and Vietnam, we grew fat and complacent as the beginning of the information age settled onto us. Quite a lot of the activist generation of my parents to a large degree were either pacified, marginalized, or sold out into the kind of 'I got mine, so the hell with you' Yuppie generation who enabled quite a lot of the problems we have today.  You know.  The ones that helped re-elect Reagan in a literal landslide, then Bush 1.

The fascists and bigots who'd been waiting for this opportunity to advance the 'southern strategy' and break the unions pounced with the Reagan administration and took every inch they could get while we whinged about inclusivity, compassion and understanding.   And it's not that we shouldn't be inclusive, compassionate or understanding.  These angels are what separate us from the horrors we have in office and their creatures now.  But one must also be vigilant WHILE being compassionate.  you remember.  Just cos the fire in your village has kept the wolves away for a while, you don't let it burn out. 

That's quite an infestation of republican fascists you've got there.  We can help get rid of that.  But it's going to cost.

The yuppies forgot this.  The fascists didn't.  They took advantage when the yuppies forgot that you never give a fascist an inch. Ever. It's like getting fleas in your house. Once you've got em, you need to unilaterally bomb the place with poison every week to keep from getting bit. Or burn the house down to be sure.

That prosperity, like with the onset of the industrial revolution in the UK, is done with. Now we're beset with robber barons the same way we were at the cusp of the 19th/20th century. And we've let them get such a foothold we may well need a second civil war or revolution to bomb them the hell out. Hopefully it will be that damnable compassion that will be our saving grace. We outnumber the fascists, but they're better armed. It's my home that when the modern day fascists start ordering their blackshirts to start firing on Americans and their loved ones, they'll know where their duty actually lies.

I can hope.

The Origins of the Modern Oligarchs... erm... Species. Totally Meant to Say 'Species'.

So I've been reading 'The Day the Universe Changed' to Jenn when it's time to take her make-up off at night. We manage about 3 or 5 pages a night. And last night, we came to a chilling bit. The book (and companion TV Series) is about discoveries that change the way we perceive the world around us, and changes our points of view. What drove us toward or away from different memes in our collective consciousness and the like. And last night, we hit the bit where James Burke was discussing the fallout of Darwin's 'Origin of the Species'. And how it led, through fuckups like Hegel and Haekel in Germany to the rise of the Nazi party.

And to give you a chill, that was NOT the most fucked up bit.

Over in America, it didn't so much give rise to Nazis, but to 'Social Darwinists'. Now, I would seem to have been using the term Social Darwinism wrongly. I always considered it to be how stupid people tend to select themselves out for extinction. You know... like the sort of thing you used to see when The Darwin Awards were a thing.  And I'm kind of fine with that. The less stupid people in the world, the better, says I. Take the warning labels off the coffee lids and chainsaws and we'll all be a few car lengths further in traffic to work tomorrow, says I. But according to those that coined the term in the first place, this really isn't the case at all. And it's certainly not what the people who coined the term meant.

Not that this kind of thing is happening today...  oh heavens no.  Except it is.

In accordance with Darwin, these early robber barons like Carnegie and Rockefeller, as well as their Nazi supporting descendants, like the Drumpfs and the Kochs cleaved to the idea of life as a struggle for resources, and that intelligence wasn't so much a survival trait. Aggression and power were seen as the things necessary to 'improve the species', and were the qualities ideally suited for accquiring as many resources as possible to continue one's line toward a more perfect human race. That it was cruel in the extreme to help the poor, disaffected, and weak as you were only removing the impetus for them to struggle and grow as individuals. That people ought to be subservient to the strong, and be pleased to work themselves to death as long as it improved the community on the whole. That those too weak to survive in adversity ought to select themselves out for extinction and die for the betterment of the whole. That positive change for the human race can only come out of violent struggle.

Sound familiar?

Do you want to know more?  Read the book.

As I read to Jenn last night, we both kept looking at one another. Stunned. Had we found the lodestone around which our current oligarchy of cruel old white men have planted their tree of truth? They actually subscribe to this self-serving cruelty. You hear it every time they talk about creating a nation of takers, even as they take the food and medicine out of the mouths of the hungry and sick. They put guns in the hands of people full of hatreds and selfish ignorance. Arming the strong, victimizing the weak, taking all the resources for themselves... And then they pat themselves on one another's wrinkly backs for doing God's work and laughing that the 'intellectuals' are too fractured to do anything but discuss how bad things are getting.

These fossils grew up on this. They were fed and raised on it while they were little fascist larvae by people who bought into this Social Darwinist crap in the first half of the 20th century. Our present oligarchs are the direct descendants of robber barons that bought into this Aryan and Social Darwinist bullshit. Never mind they'd have been Anarchist Buddhists or whatever creed they could use to justify their greed and ambition. I have to imagine that the christian fundamentalists they pander to nowadays would be horrified to find out that their Rand-ian darlings' philosophies are based (however wrongly) in Darwinian science. That's us Americans for you. Like the man said, "We take what we want... and leave the rest. JUST LIKE YOUR SALAD BAR."

My own view is that we have surpassed Darwinian biological imperatives with our sciences. The violent struggle is no longer necessary when resources of power and production can be had from the very wind and sunlight. The energy from those resources turned into the production of necessaries from more efficient raw materials and reclaimed waste, the collection of which we can automate with machines. We can literally craft and guide our species' evolution toward something greater with deliberate intent. And we can do it with science and compassion for all as our tools. No one gets left behind. ... Okay... not even the stupid people.

The greedy, hoarding philosophy of 'I got mine, so fuck you.' is UN-necessary in the 21st century with the powers our minds can bring to bear on the problems of our continued existence. If we could but unchain ourselves from the failed philosophies of the robber barons and the Aryans, brought forward into our time by the corporate oligarchs who prey on the weak. Wrapping themselves in whatever flag or dogma they can find to help the uneducated swallow their poison pill.

And it's about to come to a breaking point. That bit where very real and noticable numbers of people are going to start dying to support the greed of a mere 400 or so people while the rest of the world burns. Will we finally reject how they're using our differences to divide us? It's not going to come by means of some enforced epiphany. We're not going to make them see sense. In their flawed social darwinist view, they fully believe that they SEE sense. They're convinced of the rightness of their claim to the keys to the kingdom. Your health. Your life. Your children.

So... maybe there is ONE use for violent struggle. To show them the mercy of the guillotine so savagely that generations throughout the following centuries will remember that their meme was an evolutionary cul-de-sac for the entire human race. That we will take to heart the compassion for one another that the whole needs to survive the ruinous cancer of our 'social elites'. And should they continue to grow at our expense? Then we take to heart that other maxim.

Sic semper tyrannis.

Thus always to tyrants.

Anyway, have a look at the episode of the companion TV show that goes with the chapter I was reading to Jenn last night. He manages to cover some of the points made in his book rather well.