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.

An Open Letter to Mrs. Hillary Clinton Regarding a Choice That Has Fallen To Her To Make

Mrs. Clinton, you have a choice.

I want to talk to you about that.  Person to person.  I don't want to insult you, or fight with you.  I just want to talk about the choice you have before you.  You have, very likely, the most important choice in mankind's history to make.  And I am not reaching for hyperbole here.  Really truly and literally, you have a choice that will decide the future of the human race.

It's not a glorious choice.  It will not ensure any kind of enduring legacy for you.  It will make the sacrifices of a lot of people meaningless.  And in the end, you may fade into historic obscurity because of it.  Remembered fondly only by friends and loved ones and family like any of the teeming billions of us on our small beautiful world.  But your choice can make you the savior of the world.

Heroes do that.  Legendary exemplars of all the best angels in our natures.  People who looked at the hard choice to sacrifice everything for the good of the world and did what they had to do.  Knowing their star might fade and fall forgotten to the ground in the end.  Unremembered.  Maybe even unloved.

Given the wealth and position you have commanded for the last 30 years, you will pass from the earth comfortably and taken care of.  You have already won the best possible thing any breathing animal on our world can wish for themselves.  You can rest assured in the knowledge that what you have done will surround those you love and care for with wealth and security for generations.

But back to the choice before you.  Before all of us.  And the enemy you face.

You have a nemesis, Mrs. Clinton.  I have seen it.  It follows you everywhere you go.  It is present with you in every appearance you make.  You may know it too.  You're not a stupid person.  Stupid people don't achieve what you've achieved unless it was given to them to ruin.

I have to believe that a certain amount of self-awareness must come with what you do.  So when you lie down to sleep every night like all of the billions of the rest of us, I do wonder if you've treated with your nemesis in the dark.  I use the word precisely, Mrs. Clinton.  I do so intentionally because I want to raise this thought up into the realm of a legendary tale.  A story that encompasses the entire human race.  The battle with your nemesis is a heroic one.  Not one that sagas will be written about.  It's merely one you will fight in the dark of your bed every night.

Your nemesis...  I don't want to name the thing as ego or pride.  Because that makes what you must face a base thing.  And we reject the baser things within us.  We don't want to believe they are there.  Like I said.  I don't want to insult you.  But there is a drive in you that isn't an uncommon one that you must defeat in order to make the decision that will save the world.  And you can do this.  The self-awareness that must come with your intelligence and achievement precludes your not being aware of it.

Maybe no one has brought it up to you.  It's an easy possibility to imagine, really.  When one has achieved the status you have, an echo chamber, or perhaps a vaccum forms around you.  Power does that.  Suddenly, people stop contradicting you.  They get agreeable.  They stop saying no.  They try not to upset you.  When you have it, the world is your oyster.  And those around you who are tasked with keeping you sane and unruffled make sure uncomfortable ideas do not reach your eyes and ears.  Like the idea that your baser nature may be blinding you from realizing what your nemesis is making of you.

Blinding you from a choice you could make to save the world.

And again... I have to repeat myself here because the idea of the world and every person and animal on it is too big.  The idea that the fate of every living thing on our planet could rest with any single one of us is almost the height of delusion.  And yet, here we are.  The decision you have it within your power to make will save the world, or doom it.  It very literally means the difference between the possibility of mankind truly harnessing the powers of nature to bring peace and benevolence to every living thing, or dying of thirst and disease in a filthy waste.

This is not fantasy or science-fiction.  This is the moment in history we inhabit.  The fate of our country, the world, every breathing organism on it, and the future they are promised waits on your bravery.  It is the stuff of legend.  The stuff of dreams to find one's self in the position to change everything... literally everything... for the better.  And finding one's self in that moment with the power to make that happen.  And that moment in history, this unprecedented awesome moment and the responsibility to decide its course has fallen to you.  And the actual doing of it is easy.  It's the easiest thing you will ever have to do.  But given the impression I have of you... it may be the hardest thing to decide to do.

Given your intelligence, you already know what I am going to say.

Resign.

Thank everyone for their hard work and sacrifice.  Do the round of pundits who will demand to know just what the hell you think you're doing and tell them whatever will ensure that vengeful people will not condemn you or come for what is yours.  Send everyone home.  Pay back anyone that needs paying back or keep the money if you feel you need to.  Do what you have to in order to survive afterward because having done this, you will have earned every comfort remaining to your days on this earth.

You will be the person who had the power to take everything, but had the strength to know when to turn aside and go home.  The person who knew she'd never have more power in her life, or in anyone's life in our history or future than she did when it was her decision to seek the oval office or resign.

I don't know what motivates you.  Many of your motivations are likely always going to be beyond me.  It's easy with a person I don't know personally to want to boil them down to stereotypes.  Archetypes of heroism or villainy.  Saints or sinners.  It's lazy thinking to want to just dismiss someone as a fanatic, a traitor, a lunatic, a bleeding heart, a criminal mastermind, a democrat or republican.  Capitalist or Communist.

But if power motivates you.  This is your moment of absolute power.  Again.  I use the word precisely.   In this moment, you have absolute power to decide for the good or ill of the world.  Your decision to run for the presidency or stand aside is the most important decision any human being will make in our planet's history.  No decision has been so important.  And given the brink upon which our future teeters... no presently imaginable decision will ever be as important afterward.

Think about the weight of history.  Think about every living being that has breathed, cried, loved or died trying to make their way.  Each believing what they were doing was the best they could do at the time with what they had.  Think of the blood and effort we have spent again and again, crawling out of ignorance into knowledge and achievement.  Think of what we have achieved for good or for ill throughout the centuries.  The fruits of every toil and sacrifice are now in your hands.

I mentioned the self-awareness one must have in order to do what you do for our country.  What you have done.  What you can still do.  I cannot pretend to know the difficulty of some of the decisions you've had to make.  The consequences you have to live with.  The hard decisions you've made that brought you to this point in history.  You have done what you had to do at the time.  You did what you thought was best with what you had.  Either for others, or yourself.  This is what each and every one of us do to survive, you and me included.

It's what's motivating me to try to talk about this with you right now.  It's not something I want to do, or how I wanted to spend my evening.  I'm doing what I feel I have to.  We humans aren't an inherently good or bad creature.  What we are inherently... are people.  It says something about us that we aspire to the better in ourselves in the end.  That we deserve to survive in spite of those who fall to the baser drives within them.  Their nemesis.

Without that aspiration to be better than we are, we are simply cancer with legs that learned to count.

I am not saying you are a bad person.  I imagine your husband and your children would contest that point rather vigorously.  What I'm saying is that the people in your own personal echo chamber, or vacuum of power do not have the good of the rest of us at heart.  I think perhaps you have come to the point you are at in history because of people who would see us all burn tomorrow if it meant another day where they were not answerable to any law of mankind on earth.  People who would suck every drop of water from the ground only to sell it back at a profit and poison the rest.  These are the kind of people who own more than the rest of us combined, treat it like an open sewer, and don't feel there's anything wrong with that.

You didn't just wake up one morning and decide to put on a handlebar mustache and be a villain.  No sane person makes such a decision.  And it's not like you at some point decided to be a willing accomplice to a plutocracy dedicated to murdering the world and all the people in it.  Another precise term.  They are poisoning our planet and all people in it, and behaving in a way that will bake us in our own juices or drown us, or whatever other hideous unthinkable horror may descend as our environment careens beyond our ability to survive in it.

You may think you can negotiate with these people.  You cannot.  They will take until we wrest their ability to take away from them.  They will never surrender the knife they hold to the world's throat.  And they will only surrender such power over the mutilated corpses of the rest of us.  The grotesque falsehoods and lies their creatures tell in the halls of our leaders to achieve their aims in the face of plain evidence to the contrary only confirms this.

The self-awareness I mentioned earlier?  The intelligence I perceive to be within you?  I want you to turn it to within yourself.  Do you honestly believe these people care for the rest of us?  Do you think that you can change them, or make our situation better?  Do you think you can turn aside the tide of their destruction?  And you cannot put off this observation.  We are out of time.  Like the song says, "this is not a false alarm, this is not a test.  nowhere we can fly away, nowhere we can rest."  This is a signature of the kind of historic moment and choice you face.  It's a decision that must be made now.  No further deliberation.

Do you believe you are the right person for a job in which the fate of mankind will be decided?  Do you think you can be a force for all of us, and not just the 20 who can lay claim to more than the rest of us will ever see or own in our lifetimes?  Do you think you are the right person to save the world?  Do you care enough to make decisions to heal and repair us all instead of selling it to those that will murder it for the merest chance of another coin in their pockets?

All I can see is what I'm seeing in the news, when it comes to you.  Your history as is available online.  The decisions you've made.  The people you've worked with and represented.  From what I see... and this is not a judgement of you as a person.  Remember.  You're not a good or bad person.  You're just a person like the rest of us doing what you have to with what you've got like any of us.  From what I see...  if you achieve the presidency, I believe you will continue to do what you have done.  Basically what you feel you have to.  And if what you've done is any example, what you will do is doom us all.

I want you to look inside yourself.  Focus your intelligence and bravery and any honesty you have with yourself.  Use all the insight you have in your heart and mind and look within.  Survey what you see there.  Then tell yourself honestly if you believe you can save us from a seat in the oval office?

If you see what I percieve... then you can save us.  You can save the world.  All of it.  All the history that's led up to this moment.  And the entire future of everything that will ever breathe.

Turn aside.

Resign.

It will not be easy.  Nothing worthwhile ever is.  It will be the hardest decision you will ever make; the decision to step aside and let someone else have the power you now posess.  It is your privilege to make the most important decision ever made in mankind, for the benefit of all, or the few at the cost of all.  The facts of our situation are clear, despite the lies of those who presently hold everything in the world in a literal deathgrip.  You at this moment have it within your power to defer to people with the will to fight to the death to save us all.

I don't know how literate you are.  How versed you may be with our mythologies, legends, literature and history.  The trope is one seen over and over again.  One where someone has all the power in the world.  ...and is wise enough in their own limitations to give it away for the good of the world.  There is no shame in this.  These are the characters and heroes that are remembered kindly and with affection.  Their legacies endure.

You can win this for yourself and every human that will ever be.

You can do the right thing here.

You have, literally, all the power in the world right now.

When faced with this immense decision, do you have the wisdom, the strength and the self-awareness to give it up?

I urge you, before it is too late for everyone.

Everyone that has been.

Everyone that will be.

You have a decision to make.

Please.

Choose wisely.

-Edward WinterRose is a dilettante, an actor, a writer, artist, a self-proclaimed activist/anarchist, and a wage guy.  He welcomes a response and/or a conversation with Mrs. Clinton, whom he thinks may not understand the gravity of her situation, or the grave choices she faces.

First Post, and a Letter to the NC Democratic Party

So... in the wake of the more recent decision by the SCOTUS, I feel there's a disturbing trend in the United States toward a surface theocracy that serves as the 'moral' front for a corporate oligarchy.  I have, over the years wondered if I might be suitable for public office.  I certainly have more on the ball than at least half of the committee for scientific advancement in our nation's congress.  Meaning my beliefs aren't dictated by folklore, but rather proven fact, observation and experimentation.  Finally... as something of a mental exercise, I thought I'd come up with this blog.  And who knows... maybe this will lead to more than just some political rant page.  I'd actually like to get into the business of legislation and government.

So... today, after having made a post to facebook about it, my director in an audio show I regularly take part in said, "Why DON'T you run for office, Edward?"

And in spite of my misgivings, I had no clear answer why not.

So... first thing I did?  I hopped over to the page for the North Carolina Democratic Party.  Got me an email address, and wrote them this letter:

To Whom It May Concern,

Hi there.  My name's Edward WinterRose.  And I have a desire to get into political service.  I'd quite like to run for office and eventually be able to attain the office of being in the state house or senate, or in the US house or senate.  Honestly, every single thing I read says to start off in local office and see where you can go from there if you do good work.  So, the next step is to start reaching out to people who would know where I might best fit and where I might be needed.

Now... A bit about myself.  I have no civic experience, as far as having worked in government before.  The last time I did anything like that was to work in the campaign office of the democratic representative in Concord, NC back in 1989 or 1990.  I am a creative professional, a trained actor and voice-over artist, graphic artist and tech support advisor currently looking for work.  I'm married and presently trying to have a child with my wife.  I'm carrying at least 50,000 dollars in student debt like quite a lot of people nowadays.  I'm not rich, nor am I likely to inherit any sort of wealth.  I'm 42 years of age.  I've never been convicted of a felony.  I don't drink.  Don't smoke.  I've never been drunk or high.  I've a tested IQ of 145.

I'm not in the least bit religious.  I'm not what someone would call the most morally pure of people, but I'm all the way around the world from being a bigot, sexist, racist, greedy, or compromised by moneyed interests. (Which puts me ahead of the game as far as several people holding office are concerned.)  I find myself to be ruthlessly practical, yet compassionate.  I think of myself as being a sensible and educated individual, ready to research and get the sense of any given concept I'm not immediately familiar with.  I'm rather intolerant of social injustice and hypocrisy with a rather strong need to achieve a position where I might be able to do something positive for the world if I'm going to bring a child into it.  I'm not swayed by false science, meaningless rhetoric, or religious fervor.  If anything, I could be (and probably will be) described as a secular humanist.  I am honest to a fault.  I tend not to butter people up, or sweet talk people.  I tell them what I think and what I believe.  I'm entirely unafraid to call an opponent on a lie or untruth, and will take pleasure in debunking any falsehood I'm presented with.

I see myself as a marketable candidate who wants to learn and do good by my state and country.  I'm likely a sympathetic figure with anyone carrying any kind of student debt, or debt in general.  I'm not 'one of them', as it were.  I have no friends among the one percent I have to tithe or pay homage to.  The church has no say in my politics, and likely will not any time soon.  At least apart from regarding them equally and equitably while separating them from the affairs of state.  I'm a registered democrat, and likely to run as one if you'll have me.  My sensibilities are activist for people, not corporations or organizations.  And I've lived in the world the rest of us live in.  So I'm not entirely abstracted from the trials and needs of everyday life as some people in office today have repeatedly demonstrated they are.  There are no liens on my morality from those who might seek to influence or lobby at me with more than fact.  I am upfront with my life, and wear it on my sleeve.

If you have any suggestions about how I might get started in seeking office from which to advance into a legislative capacity, please let me know.  If you know of any offices in my own districts where I might make a tactically good fit for ease of initial insertion into government work, do let me know.  I'm presently located in Raleigh, NC, in NC Senate district 38, and in General Assembly district 14.  I've included my professional resume, which you can also find reflected on my LinkedIn page.  I'm most easily reached at <MY EMAIL ADDRESS>.  I'm curious as to what you might have to say on the matter.  Do not be afraid to ask me questions you think I should be able to answer.  Even if you find I don't meet your party's needs, this is still something I'd like to use as a mental exercise or write about.

Edward WinterRose

 Like the man once said on Mystery Science Theater 3000.  What do you think, Sirs?