Tuesday, March 28, 2017 12:21 PM
I think Fascism may have been a temper tantrum that Western Civilization threw after their God died. They thought, “Well, we can’t worship the unseen anymore—let’s worship ourselves—or our leaders.” Capitalism, too, seems to have become a tawdry equivalent—“Money is life, so worship money above all else.” But the Earth has always provided us with much more than we give ourselves, or can buy with money—if worshipping Gaea wasn’t such an old, primitive meme, it’d get more play in the West. Instead, many choose Trump—a crossbreed of Fascism and Capitalism.
Still, we don’t need to worship the Earth—taking care of it would be sufficient—not poisoning it or chopping it down would do the trick. Ironically, that which connects us inexorably to the planet is the thing that makes us destroy it—we are animals. Born in blood and feces, breastfed, raised on roasted flesh, making waste, making babies, striving, fighting, and dying—take away the clothes and the gadgets, we’re just a bunch of animals. And when we’re asked to control ourselves, we claim ‘freedom’ and do whatever we want, instead.
It’s true—nothing makes me want to start a fight more than someone else saying, ‘control yourself’. Language becomes a cage, and when it starts to close in, we shout our way out. That’s what all that shouting on TV news is about—animals trying to break out of the cage of facts, rationalizing their predations as if their lives depended on it. You’ll notice that everyone stays calm until their reality is attacked—that’s when the confrontation comes, when they’re challenged. It no longer fascinates, or even frustrates, me—it just makes me sick and tired.
Trump and his gang make a big deal of manners—manners make it okay to condemn a statement without denying anything in the statement. That they are the rudest bunch of thugs seems to escape their notice, interstitially. They talk down to the whole country—but still puff themselves up and stand on ceremony whenever anyone else approaches frankness. I’d never thought of hypocrisy as a lifestyle choice before this administration came in. It’s endlessly embarrassing to see the depths of ignorance and self-service to which Trump, his gang of traitors, and the Republicans as a group, are willing to stoop.
It’s almost funny—if they weren’t so desperately self-involved, they could see for themselves how utterly transparent their cynical mendacity is to the rest of us. If there was ever a perfect example of the adage ‘be careful what you wish for’, Trump is it. That crowd of fools, who so ferociously rejected the female candidate, were just enough to get Trump through the Electoral College—and now that he’s in office, it seems that the delusional chaos of his campaign speeches is being transcribed to paper, as if he spoke with judgement instead of mere authority.
I can guarantee that a referendum, tomorrow, on President Trump would remove him from office—but we are so used to getting a usable President that we have no machinery to dispose of a broken one that snuck in by accident. Any other elected office would be vulnerable to a referendum, but when you’re the President, you’re the one who calls for it—I hope we’ve all learned a lesson here. Be more careful when you vote for a president, from now on. They ‘investigate’ themselves, once sworn in—when we should have done so, prior to the election.
But that stuff isn’t news at all—the sudden, precipitous rise in the level of lies and stupidity is a shock—but it’s really just the old way, with a super-charger on the Evil. Government has never been totally innocent or idealistic—but it’s insistence on the pretense of civility has worn so thin it’s transparent, or gone completely, really, when you see the Administration’s latest antics and mouthings. The treacly bonhomie that Sean Spicer was giving off today was more nauseating than his rudeness-fit faux-pas from yesterday—that clown is no actor—and I have no more stomach for smiling hypocrisy than for angry cynicism.
We have a representative government—but because of the Electoral College, our current administration represents the most resentful and ill-educated third of the voters—and the voters themselves were only half the number of eligible voters. At this point, we should make voting a legal requirement, like jury duty—sure, we’d be forcing the more irresponsible people to participate, but being irresponsible is better than being foolish enough to vote for that profiteering Russian puppet, Trump.
