Hurled Sink 1.

Or, Do These Pants Make Me Look Like A Marxist?

Ok. As I was saying:

Caution: Hurled Kitchen Sink Ahead

I’m peeping out of my burrow for one quick rant before the flying monkeys return to Washington:

I write because we are at an inflection point.

I write because I must.

I’m going to say everything only once and then it’s right back in the burrow. I’m not going to rant daily. But it needs to be said.

Ok.

With guilty pleas by Trump top insider/conspirators, the Freedom Caucus and the movement it represents is officially doomed. The leaders of the caucus are all implicated in Federal crimes. All of them.

The people who are indicted : leaders of the Freedom Caucus.

And the House of Representatives in its thrall is a power vacuum.

The failure to pick a Speaker of the House is truly a disaster for the Republicans.

There is more than a trace of blood in the water.

This is the first time in my entire life I’ve heard the Tea Party/ Freedom Caucus /Rush Limbaugh-ites admit they’ve completely fucked the entire thing up.

This is by design. It takes effort to screw this up.

The only reason they’re public with their failure is they’re forced to by the legal decisions and political circumstances of their own making that have hemmed them in in every direction. They are completely out of options.

This is a huge historic admission that exposes everything Rush Limbaugh propounded.

The decades-long Rush Limbaugh toxic-hate campaign led to directly to this: a branch of government almost completely destroyed. Undermined is understatement.

There are no lies left to tell. They aren’t telling them because they can’t think of any.

This is a vacuum specifically created to make room for a dictator.

There are only two choices. Government by compromise or by authoritarian rule. That’s it.

The Republicans said just this week they absolutely refuse government by compromise. Their words.

In theater lingo they’ve struck the set. The stage is bare. No special effects available. No curtain. No pretending. Nowhere to turn.
No tricks up their sleeve at all.

“We fucked up! We are losers! Why won’t someone help us out of this mess we created?”

After a violent election attack on the Democratic Party and on our system of government and a refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Biden administration, now they expect a hand across the aisle?

What?

They are opposed to representative government, period. Proof: Donald J Trump. And yet, now what?

They did this. This huge waste of time, the sabotage of an entire branch of government, was their political operation. No Democrats were involved.

One of the historic times when, to the astonishment of all, members were hopelessly unable to pick a Speaker of the House- perhaps the most basic, elemental and simple operations of governing- was a minute before the Civil War. The South refused to compromise on the slavery issue, saying no one could be speaker that wasn’t in support of the black codes in every state and territory. 1859-60.

And if a Speaker was chosen that didn’t meet that standard the states should just walk out.

The House of Representatives was then at an complete impasse. It went on for a month. Getting nowhere. Onlookers were really shocked. Picking a Speaker is usually a total no-brainer, with the usual horse trading etc.

It was an election year against Mr Lincoln and the same forces as we see today decided to scrap Democracy and walk out of the Perpetual Union.

This was by design. The faction had no possibility of getting its way so planned to blow everything up.

They know that. Most of the young libertarians do not know the history- but the ideologues do.

The Republican Party pledged to destroy the administrative state. They nearly succeeded. They are STILL working on it.

They don’t want to cut checks for workers or bureaucrats. Nope. Social Security?: you’ve got to be kidding. Jesus. Lord.

The leader is indicted. His attorneys have turned state’s evidence. He’s going to prison. Yes, really.

That’s his choice. His problems right now are entirely of his own volition. He could have conceded and surely would have won resoundingly in 2024. He chose an alternative path. Of lies, deception, fraudulent claims and threats of violence .

(That was such an exponentially “Nixon” thing to do, to not wait four fucking years. Instead, to send goons hither and yon, to wreak havoc far and wide.)

His propaganda channel paid out a billion dollars and is now officially regarded as a channel for lies, with (at least) three more billion-dollar payout trials yet to lose.

The minions are in prison also. This movement is collapsing.

This is not enough to stop Fascism. This is actually only a stop on the roadmap. A pause.

Out of the current ashes their star will surely arise. The imprisoned martyr. Demolition is a step in the process they’ve toyed with all my lifetime.

There are those who behind the scenes manipulated these people for decades, who truly are happy to destroy the government because they hate to pay taxes.

And they are enjoying this planned system shutdown by incompetent people who should never have been involved in government. For them, this is the ideal situation. Despite looming shutdown, people not getting paid, two wars, etc.

They agree with Trump: chaos is good. It creates a power vacuum. And that is great.

Some of them are working for other governments- not the USA. And some of those working on behalf of other governments are sitting members of Congress. So this for them is gigantic psychological operation. It succeeded spectacularly. Despite -or because of -your pickup trucks and flags.

Black Lives Matter and mythical “Antifa” – fringe movements with belated, nominal Democratic support -did not hold political power. These MAGAs do; they are in a power center at the heart the Federal government, with a vast sphere of influence. Huge difference. I’m just stopping the whataboutism right here.

And right now Republicans are trying to blame eight bomb-throwers in the House for a situation they marched toward in lockstep for years.

Yes the president was impeached- legally, and aquitted. Democrats accepted the result. As they should. (There is no political hassle ever that inconvenienced Trump even slightly or wasn’t used to his advantage, though he claimed to be a victim while he grifted his supporters.)

This is another thing entirely, this Trump/ no government thing.

So we hold the line.

The Republican Party must be allowed to hit bottom. As in addiction, there is no persuasive power that can effect the necessary change toward survival. It’s truly a death/spiral. We have to be ready. Courageous. And, when the time comes, to put the pieces back together.

Without that, hitting absolute bottom, the forces in play will redouble their energies. It’s truly a horror show, but mitigation keeps the ember of fascism smoldering just under the surface of public opinion.

But Fascism is not an opinion. It’s not a “point of view.” It’s a malevolent force, an energy.

Do not save the Fascists in the House! The “moderates” do not exist- they were expelled and voted out in primaries. Do not pretend to mollify a “moderate.” It is a ruse.

The American Fascists will never, never, never stop.

There is no gear to throw into reverse. There is no governor in that machine.

Historically, movements like we witness in the House have massacred their political enemies. Not that long ago. French Revolution. Russian Revolution.

They have expressed that desire just this year by a platform of “purging” the country of their opponents in a campaign of “retribution”. The leader has pledged to “terminate” the Constitution.

(FOX is pretending objectivity for the moment. It’s fake. Truly. They will never stop and they will betray their “friends.” They are not defending Sydney Powell, for example. Reminder: Corporations are NOT people.)

This is not metaphorical. It’s real. These are their words. When they tell you who they are, believe them.

In my youth, the Communism Hysteria, the Black Lists, McCarthism and the House UnAmerican Activities Committee were still recent and reverberating. This is far, far worse. Exponentially more dangerous.

But today there is a difference: the disputes that led to Civil War a century ago were sectional. The ones today are in every state- and popular opinion is not divided on issues of human rights.

Hold the line. Save the Union. We are the 80%. They are the 18%.

We’ve got this. Do not blink.

An Apt Comparison

…as if one were needed.

I was a high school long hair kid in 1972. We derelicts hated Establishment squares like Donald. But anyway. I judge the debate by a random comparison of 1972, the year I live in mentally.

Donald Trump in 1972: (NY Times profile)

“He is tall, lean and blond, with dazzling white teeth, and he looks ever so much like Robert Redford. He rides around town in a chauffeured silver Cadillac with his initials, DJT, on the plates. He dates slinky fashion models, belongs to the most elegant clubs and, at only 30 years of age, estimates that he is worth ‘more than $200 million.’ (That’s gone up a bit.)”

Joe Biden in 1972: (Wikipedia)

“Became the US junior senator from Delaware.
His campaign had almost no money, and he was given no chance of winning.Family members managed and staffed the campaign, which relied on meeting voters face-to-face and hand-distributing position papers, an approach made feasible by Delaware’s small size. He received some help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell. His platform focused on withdrawal from Vietnam, the environment, civil rights, mass transit, more equitable taxation, health care, and public dissatisfaction with “politics as usual”

The Hero’s Journey

This is an old one from 2018.

In the Oval Office. Kanye. I know.

But listen: Kanye quoted scholar Joseph Campbell, on the hero’s journey.

This appropriation of a classicist’s life’s work would undoubtedly bring a vehement protest from Joseph Campbell, one of the great minds of the century, the scholar of the archetypes of the Inner Journey.

Kanye claimed the hero of the journey of life to be Donald J Trump.

Campbell would be aghast.

The hero of the journey is not Donald J Trump, the archetype of the the blind king, sightless, tanning goggles on, bathed in UV rays, in seclusion with a comb-over corona- a vain, blind sun king ruling the world by darkness.

The hero is not Kanye, the betrayer, the presumptive son, whose name is associated with sundown, and with ultimate means and ends of the discredited, rational state of consciousness.

The hero is not the true son, Barron, locked away in a tower somewhere, with a mythical psychological condition, protected, controlled by the Mother, who awaits her own revenge. The true prince is Barron, but he is not the hero.

The hero is not Melania- who deserves her own fairy tale.

The hero is not the daughter, Ivanka, the object of the King’s taboo fantasy: the armoured showpiece Joan of Arc that shields the king from his enemies; a symbol of neutralized feminine power, and a religious figure as well, untouchable, impregnable: the seller of shoes to Cinderella.

No, the heroes aren’t the sons, Eric, Donald Jr, and other aides and subalterns who stand alongside- that sideshow out of Shakespeare, these symbols of the Unconscious indicate what is to befall us if we pursue them closely enough.

The hero isn’t Jared, who carries the ancient spear for the administration.

The hero isn’t even Justice, symbolized by the blackout of the drink, rather than the balanced scales and blindfolded archetype.

No, Joseph Campbell, would have something to say about this archetypal scenario in which every person’s nightmare vulnerability (or aggression-sexism, racism , fascism,antisemitism) is somehow projected,including those true victims and warriors already wounded, and arising again, like Dr Ford- the anima.

Yes, male animus and female anima, ever-present on this journey toward the Integrated Self.

The levels of consciousness at a certain stage are beset by symbolic darkness, the Shadow of projected fears, sometimes depicted as sleep, as in Sleeping Beauty. Symbolic death. Regeneration. It’s a time of crisis. Otherwise, no hero, no journey.

The Jungians were pessimistic after the Second World War, faced with the atomic bomb.

And Campbell would have hoped for the hero, but would note that we have a short time to decipher the code.

Of course the hero isn’t them.

The hero is you. It’s me. It’s you.

jk
10/13/2018

Language is at the very edge of what we know.

I was thinking about forbidden words and euphemisms, and how these are debated and scorned.

How do we learn, as if hurrying at once to the same page, to find the line of a shared political vernacular?

I refer to cultural “linguistics” -cultural values of language: what is considered acceptable to some, objectionable to others, proscribed, and so in a weird reversal, promulgated.

Rather than reacting, it is interesting just to be very aware of where some draw the line- it’s an outer barrier, and limits insight.

I think of the probing of one of those deep-diving, remotely operated submarines with the tiny porthole and a thin beam of light. Meager. Insufficient. Almost hopeless in the darkness.

Language is illuminating; it alllows us to see in the dark, to navigate.

How limited we are! In a vast space which is the unspeakable, the unknowable.

I think of the loud political disputes and realize probably a kind of poetry is our only way out of the mess we’re in.

I think of the terrible language assault on the LGBTQ+ community. The language assault has its own dynamic. Violence is a language of limitation.

If we look closely at the language objectively, it is a map showing where we are as a country.

We can decide to make a change regarding human rights. As a country. In an official capacity. As a Nation.

Substitute for the language of hate and fear the language of service.

When in doubt, be of service. Service as offering, as opportunity, opens a space, unlocks a door. Shut down, or advance?

etymonline:

advance (v.)
mid-13c., avauncen (transitive), “improve (something), further the development of,” from Old French avancir, avancier “move forward, go forward, set forward” (12c., Modern French avancer), from Vulgar Latin *abanteare (source of Italian avanzare, Spanish avanzar). This is from Late Latin abante “from before,” composed of ab “from” (see ab-) + ante “before, in front of, against” (from PIE root *ant- “front, forehead”)

**

Government Shut Down, The Home Version

Now I am able to look back at the last century as if it were the last century- and it was.

A talking wristwatch?

Nevermind the inventions. We’ve learned so much about human nature, have we not, by scratching the surface of disputes like a persistent itch, and daily facing the consequences of the common, base language of our politics.

It’s deep, what we’re living through. A crisis without definition is a mundane struggle to survive. Intelligence without analysis is propaganda.

The plan, the constitution, the frame of government, was always to do better, not worse- if only slightly; to preserve some powers and to allow others to contend for a freehold and basic necessities.

We are at a fascinating turning point. I realize we can see well into the mire and there is a path out, if we take it. Before us not one footprint, and that is the great adventure.

This might all be worth it. Without Shakespeare we find ourselves stuck in the play, and yet, at this moment, our main characters are out of options. We write the next act.

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