Both Sides week 22

 I had a really, *really* long post about the both sides conversation.  It was fairly topical in lieu of the WSJ article about how two Pennsylvania neighbors with opposing political views stay friends.  (It's the WSJ so of course they want you to pay for it.)  I also had some friends who are writer's and can articulate with more eloquence and grace than I about speaking points you frequently see batted back and forth which laid the groundwork for a calm transition after election day.  It's free, so I'd recommend giving it a read if you have the time.

In the last week, though, we've had the final debate and an appointment of a new Supreme Court Justice and while I originally wrote about my parents, and the importance of what I learned from them and how foundationally-speaking we're all sort of alike and the party-system sort of sets us up for failure (and has, deliberately) for the better part of 25 years.  Here's what it boils down to, and if you are a well-meaning person with a social media presence who, shall we say, veers right then this next part is for you especially because I'm going to give you the bottom line.  

It's been, in my experience, that people who lean conservative are those that post something like *There is SO much HATE coming from BOTH sides"* with particular emphasis on capitalizing specific parts of THEIR posts.  (I'm not a fan)  It's usually followed by a rejoinder that we are all human beings or (occasionally) a copy and pasted list of the GOOD THINGS the PRESIDENT has done for our country.  Or maybe it's a feel-good video, or whatever.  To help you understand in the same way when you tell someone to CALM DOWN they generally do the OPPOSITE? 

From a social media (and, by extension, how you really feel)  If you are posting about both sides being culpable in spreading discord what you're (really) asking the other side to STOP TALKING ABOUT POLITICS MY GOD I HATE ELECTION YEAR SO MUCH!

Since I lack the grace of my friends up there and with kind regard to people sharing the Pennsylvanian version of the Capulets and Montague's having a pot luck.  Here's where I think the actual division lies.

1) Donald Trump is a garbage human being, unqualified and unfit to lead the nation and exemplifies a list of terrible qualities that shine like a lighthouse directly into your bedroom.   There's no escaping the non-stop barrage of awful that is either repeated, you are reminded of by the news cycle, and- this is important- to have to constantly listen to people defend him...not just stupid attendees of his super-spreader dog and pony shows, but who defend him...is ultimately such a frustrating exercise that it causes the more base instincts to be displayed.  Like anger?  Like anger.

2) The modern GOP playbook is rotten and manipulative and people that still think they are acting in their best interests as citizens are similarly frustrating.  And to refer back to point one?  You are supporting an individual that falls so beneath the ideals of common decency that it's no longer fathomable to think you care about the hopeful ideals of democracy.

Ok?

To qualify this-  Democrats aren't outside the realm of deep and harsh criticism and I'm certain there are people who would be quick to point this out by way of defense.  But at least I know them.  All of them.  And I'm still aligning with *My* side.  It's that self-awareness that adds to the frustration.  We know about Obama's drone record.  We know what Biden did with segregationist senators.  It's been news and public record.  Fuck, we can't even agree to a candidate any more unless it passes a purity test and matches an imaginary ideal.  

To listen to the *hate* coming from the *right* ends up being a regurgitated broken record of Fox talking points.  And if you can't be divested from the realization that it's an *entertainment Cable News Channel* that's designed specifically to provoke like a haunted house tailored to YOUR fears, then we can't keep talking.

IF YOU ARE STILL HERE- I get it.  "Politics" as is pushed in your face every day is like a boring game of air hockey where the goal is taped shut and it's *click* back and *click* forth in an obstinate wheel of uselessness where shitty laws (BY THE RIGHT) that benefit corporations and the wealthy and disenfranchise those in need get slipped through the big noisy fights.  Those used to be hush hush while you were watching the latest news, but they end up invariably doing the most damage.  HOWEVER since about 2009, there's been no hanging on pretense.  And since the RIGHT has chosen to actively be nasty in PLAIN SIGHT with their politics...the abuse has become business as usual.  And when you grow accustomed to it or just figure that's how it's going to be?

It's probably pretty jarring when all the lefties start saying "Enough is enough" or "this is bullshit".  And of course, Amy Coney Barrett- a yet untested and incredibly unqualified individual that went up for 2 weeks of hearings and said a whole lot of nothing about a whole lot of stuff she's on record as previously saying just got nominated.   So now, when I think of my daughter.  My baby girl.  And whoever she wants to grow up to be- boy, girl, non-fucking-binary.  That's my kid.  MY fucking KID.  And that someone might get to rubber stamp legislation that says she can't control what goes on with her own body?  Or marry who she chooses?  Or use whatever bathroom?

Hey, at least when your kid starts figuring shit out it would affect your daughter too.  So, equal opportunity.  And HEY!  White dudes!  We won the LOTTERY!  WOOHOO!!!

Sorry, gross joking aside- I do have anger and hate about the following.  (I can talk about it.  Or not.  It's not like this uncontrollable fit. ) But if you want to vote for TRUMP and think you lean RIGHT then you support:

Kids in cages, White Nationalists, a President who has lied (on record) about the severity of the pandemic and continues to do so (after re-configuring the pandemic response team in 2018) and who averages 50 false claims (lies) a day.  Who is crass, uncouth, and lowers the bar with every public appearance.  Who is unfit to lead.  Who is in debt to foreign entities that place him at risk of endangering our nation.  Who frequently flies in the face of the constitutional resraints meant to provide balanced leadership.  Who is, unrestrained and unable to rally and unite our nation.  

If you still want to vote for him after the first two?  If those are "meh", then honestly you aren't just a conservative or even a Republican and I think you need to have a lot of self-reflection time.  Because what that makes you is a pretty disgusting judge of character.  

But whatever.  He would sexually assault women whenever he could and that's what his fame taught him.  Not grace.  Not humility.  Not gratitude.  And I went to high school with a BUNCH of people who have DAUGHTERS who are super okay with that.  Not a deal breaker.  

That's fucked up.  That's ONE side.  

And the neat part is, if you don't want to or cant' vote for Biden?  You don't have to vote at all.  But remember, Biden has to be held to standards he's promised to uphold.  And you have a LOT of pissed off democrats who are hoping to right the ship for everyone.

Week 21- Cheaters Never Prosper and Like When You Do the Work For them

I had something really long and pithy planned for this week dealing with "both sides" having problems and yelling at each other on social media, and more to say on people who attempt to stay apolitical.  It was drawn out, invoked my parents, people in high school who have been disappointing to say the least- 

But as a reminder, it's not you:  It's literally Donald Trump.  

The rot happening inside the GOP started, btw, with Newt Gingrich re-writing the playbook on dirty politics in 1995.  He *hated* Bill Clinton, and as speaker of the house - the only people he had a lower opinion of than the democrats were just...people in general.  He likened them to zoo animals.  (I'm not shitting you) And as is customary of evil villains and plans in the making, he created a new playbook by which to reframe liberals as "enemies" and not merely opposing political idealists.  

So, as another reminder:  In 1992, Just after 12 years of a GOP led executive branch, during which time we talk about the Cold War ending (hint- it didn't, really) AIDS as a pandemic causing mass panic and hysteria against GLBTQ folks (which was ignored) a MAJOR GULF WAR that ended in...really nothing.  Super Anti-Climatic.  But at least we, as American citizens, were constitutionally free to express ourselves by being able to unironically wear and display our flag.  (Well, "burning it" was protected.  Old school "consitutionists" will remember it was not appropriate to "wear" items with our flag.)- The last two big issues during these 12 years were the absolute destruction of the middle class in the form of trickle down economics (and easing of corporate restrictions enabling the current dearth of hyper-wealth in major corporations and some awful destruction of natural resources.  This was all facilitated by that oft bandied/little understood player "the lobbyist" which, sometimes illegally, to get what they want via Congress?  Made cash "donations" to individual congresspeople in order to make sure guns and smokes and drilling were still peachy and corporations received boo-too tax breaks)...annnnnnnd?  Anyone?    

Gold star if you guessed the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine which meant Fox News could peddle grade-A horror to the stay at home racist who believed there were armies of welfare recipients with 8 kids eating steak and lobster.  Worst still, after all that goddamn beautiful Americana of 12 years and the complete ruination of the the middle class shitheads too stupid to be born earlier- A pot-smoking saxophone playing hippy philanderer with questionable economic ties was elected President.  A goddamn democrat.  

Besides draconian weed laws and incarceration mandates that directly impacted the Black Community and caused an increase in violent oppression against POCI communities, and a stupid AF scandal in which the sitting president power-played an intern in a gross display of manipulation before lying to the public...He didn't do much.

It was all still too much for Newt.  His playbook essentially was to create new verbiage for Republican Congresspeople seeking re-election.  In it, you'd use terms during campaigning and in your literature to paint your opponents as "radical", "leftists", who were trying to force change by catastrophic spending of your tax dollars.  That dog-whistle terms when discussing crime, law &order (read: "Black People") was just part of the underhanded trickery.  And shit's worked, because..well...look where we are now.

Anyway, I didn't mean for this history lesson to drag on- but it's the patented (maybe?  Newt wrote it) and deliberate manner with which Republicans chose to manipulate you so that- barring a catastrophe like 9/11- you didn't have to worry about the changes happening around you.  You just let your elected official do it for you.  If you had only a smidgen of comfort you were entitled to it, by God, and they wouldn't let another nickel go to paying for someone else's education.  (Which was originally meant to have a majority be state-funded so more students could afford college.  Well, make it more expensive and colleges could get wealthier and itttttt would be harder for BIMPOC people to attend and there's more racism and FUCK YOU!  GO TO COLLEGE FOR FREE, HA!  WHO PAYS FOR IT?!!"  You do, dickmunch.  We all do.  That was the original point.)

Well change happens with or without the consent of conservative voters, so now we're facing another election year on the heels of the last one that didn't go over like a landslide but was more or less led by a charge of previously mentioned issues (voter disenfranchisement, targeted campaigns to dissuade BIMPOC voters from voting for Democrats...the goddamn cheating Russian's who just had to say "Well Actually" or "Emails:" and they fucked over millions of American voters who were hungry for disinformation.)

And now, they're straight up stealing ballots.  So, the TL/DR version is this-- don't listen to shit.  Ask a friend for help who you know has already successfully voted if you haven't already.  Fake ballot boxes have been set up, mailed-in votes have been detained, and people have been getting sent fake voter forms from GOP sources illegally in the hopes that if you're too confused to vote- maybe you'll sit this one out.  

Seriously.  If the bar was any further underground, we'd have to call Roto-Rooter to get it out of your sewer pipe.  Cheating.  They can't even trust the shitty system they created, and if that doesn't tell you as a "Right Leaning" voter it has nothing to do with where you sit ideologically or politically and EVERYTHING to do with controlling the narrative.

21 weeks since George Floyd was murdered by cops.  We can start to do some real work toward changing the future for young BIMPOC people by helping them see they have a voice at the ballot box.

Additional Reading:  

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/

Hi. Don't matter what the paper's saaaaayyyyy VOTE

Hello.  It's Monday, October 12th.  Indigenous People's Day.  And it's been 20 weeks since the murder of George Floyd, and in the interest of keeping you apprised of current events- they granted the officer who committed the murder bail, and a free pass to someplace nice to cool his heels before the trial.  Where?  Well, it's been hidden from the public out of safety concerns.  Because WHAT?  What does a cop need safety concerns for?  Retribution?  Cops are the GOOD GUYS?

If my sarcasm doesn't feel genuine, let me please explain that there of course, many overcrowded prisons which are also underfunded yet STILL managing to make people incredibly wealthy that are filled with (pssst BIMPOC) people who couldn't afford to pay for bail or didn't have the privilege of having someone pony up bail for them for their (predominantly) non-violent crimes.  Guess who promised a contract to one of those for-profit prison builder's?   Anyway, it's speculation but my speculation is that a certain shitbrick on the Union passed a cup around to ensure bail was secured.  It's fuckery.  Angering fuckery.

If you wanted to know something about the for-profit prison system, I didn't even use the pay-to-read NY Times article showing the depths of concession's 45 made for his donors in order to curry favor and more donations.  It's from Fox Business, and those contracts are meant to make people wealthy by building cheap boxes with bars for not-white prisoners.  Look, just re-watch "The Shawshank Redemption" if you wanna know how that kind of backdoor profiteering looks in a FICTIONAL STORY and not IRL.

In case you*do* have a subscription (and at $99 a week for digital, it's a lot.  I get it.  I did it right after the election of 2016 when the first wave of the "war on fake news" happened, and haven't looked back.  I used to tease an old girlfriend for her habit of lounging in bed on a weekend reading the Times, and now I find myself glued to the daily briefing.  And with bombshells like Trump's taxes and just the other day, showing how he refilled the swamp by profiting from the presidency...which, as you know, is ill-fucking-egal...I mean, did you want to know how this asshole should fry in jail.  That he built.  

And here in the Twin Cities...someone passing bad checks gets murdered?

 

Toward the election-

So as more and more citizens vote absentee this year (A number that is up, obviously, due to public safety during the pandemic), the polls will likely start to give American's an idea of who is legitimately winning earlier.  No more needing to stay up late, as it is entirely possible numbers and projections can and will be made showing who the next President will be before the actual election day.  I bring this up, because you will also start to see a winner and a loser, and so far the numbers indicating who the loser is points to the person who was the loser back in 2016- however, as we know due to graft, a carefully orchestrated campaign to dissuade voters of colors put on by Cambridge Analytica, Russian Interference, a batshit Electoral College system giving more weight to voters in smaller/less-densely populated areas which tend to skew Republican/Conservative versus urban/Cities which tend to favor progressivism, and an absolute abundance of outright fiery racism and sexism...

And well, here's to the last 4 years of my ulcer and mental health deterioration and loss of foundational trust in our unstable institution of governance in the United States.  I guess it didn't pay to be patriotic with a big heart and giving a shit about other people when the racists who think a lady shouldn't run the country and a bankrupt sexual predator with no integrity or experience with foreign policy is THEIR FUCKING GUY.

Anyway, the one thing I want for my 7 readers to do is still vote like there is a cannon aimed at your home or your job is on the line or your kid is sick or your best friend who is GLBTQIA or spouse who is Black or I'm running out of analogies.   We're not going to survive as a country at this rate.  And the hyperbole is not hyperbole any more.  Trump is the asshole who learns their house is being foreclosed and decides to trash it.  

The newsrags are going to start focusing on an eventual winner and eventual doesn't secure the nomination any more than my good thoughts will.  He needs buried in votes to prevent any possible repudiation.  And I want you to be the one's to bury him in them.  Vote.

I want to bring this up because if we've come to expect anything from the White House and...*him*...it's how scorched Earth batshit they get when the shit hits the fan...(which it has for four years on the daily, and within the last month at a breakneck pace.)   With him sick and desperately trying to show how tough he is, and while he is incapable of talking and Tweeting at once, he's going to start dropping whatever decorum he has and start getting crazy nasty.  (If you're digging so goddamn deep that you have your staff threaten to release damaging information on your LAST political opponent from FOUR YEARS AGO...you're only slightly in trouble.)

I leave you with an image or a thought I keep coming back to when I'm out on my morning constitutional.  There's a line in a book about someone so tough they fight like a cornered bear.  Then I kept thinking "fighting like a trapped animal?  Like a caged animal?"  (If you've ever caught a beastie that did NOT want to be in a live trap, you'll know it's a pretty terrible image.)  On further reading, there IS an attribution to an Indian Cricket team that had a rally or something along the lines of "Fight like cornered TIGERS!" But goddammit, a Tiger is a noble beast and *I* was born in the year of the Tiger and fuck that noise there has to be something...OH! THANKS GOOGLE!

The original term was "fight like cornered rats".  Much like the sister phrase "Rats on a drowning ship", it was intended as a slight (in aulde Englysh...whatever.) and personally I prefer the image of the rat scurrying and trying to get out with no where to go.

Still.  They can still bite ya.  And leave an infection.  And with all the shit that's happened on this inept fuck's time in office, we have so much cleaning up and healing to do already.

Week 19

 19 weeks since George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis Police officer’s. On camera. 

 (Pictured:  Cartoon of an iceberg, with the tip being racism caught on camera.   I'm happy to provide a further explanation of what this means in the comments)

 

It'd be nice if we could expedite the prosecution since it would appear to be airtight.  It'd be nice if this was some kind of guarantee.  Instead, we're stalled on meaningful change or even the simplest performative act by the prosecution:  "We will ensure justice for George Floyd"

Also, 

 

(Pictured: Screen grab of a Tweet, informing you that if you've been swept up in the national election news cycle you may have missed that D Cameron- KY Attorney General and Trump stooge admitted the only charge admitted was the one the officer was eventually charged with:  Wanton endangerment.)

If I need to remind you, Breonna Taylor was murdered by cops performing a no-knock warrant who fired into the apartment of her boyfriend, killing her while she slept.  She didn't even get the benefit of the officers being charged with involuntary manslaughter.  D Cameron gave the officers the options of their oopsie being not considerate of the neighbors when they went in guns a-blazing.  And of course they took it.  

This is the world we're in.  You're being screamed at, shouted at, having signs held up and protests held all but begging you, my fellow white people, to see.  To *try* and understand.  To do the bare minimum and uncover your eyes and face what has been happening for 100's of years.  For 400 years.  Are you able to listen and stand up?  Recognize and acknowledge the pain?  

Because last week, the person holding the highest office in the nation did not denounce racism.  And that is an incredibly dangerous and horrifying prospect for our future.  

I just got done reading a racist kid from high school drive through a comment section on  social media defending and crowing 45's praises so I'm feeling overwhelmed and disheartened.  I almost shared the picture of this kid- who thought it was fun to say 45 isn't racist and that Biden *actually* is and look at this bus segregation shit right here, fam!  So *I* thought it'd be fun to dredge up the two page yearbook spread of our entire graduating class from my high school yearbook showing the kid holding up the sign where he cleverly hid "KKK" in the corner.  It got NEWS time back in 1993.  And in case you're wondering, this fuck hasn't changed much.

Ok.  I'm not going to stop reminding you that an unarmed black man accused of passing bad checks was murdered by a cop.  Or an EMT murdered in her bed.  Or an unarmed father shot in the back while his kids were in the car, or a beloved member of school faculty murdered in his car, or a kid going to get candy, or playing with a toy gun, or wearing head phones, or or or...

I'm spending the next 4 Monday of these chinwags exhorting you to vote like your life depended on it.  Like you had the lifesaving cure to a disease.  Like it was going to save lives.  

That's what I'm going to do here for the next 4 weeks.  Do I think it's going to be a door opening with fresh air blowing through the nation of immediate change?  No.  Do I think that we have a better chance of keeping up pressure, recreating the narrative of constant oppression, and starting to make a world where our democracy and liberty for all can mean "all not just white people..."?

Yes.  Vote Biden and Harris.  If you don't like Trump and feel the need to vote Republican, you can sit this one out.  No one has to know.