What the hell is going on

When did stupid become a virtue?  The recent action by the boneheads in Congress to defund Planned Parenthood makes one wonder if there is any hope for the Republic.   The guiding principles of the House of Representatives are ignorance and arrogance    To a one this collection of men and women have demonstrated, they are unwilling to even attempt to deliberate and legislate.  They prefer to do little but pronounce their stupidity.  

To venture into women’s health with nothing save bias and ignorance is to demonstrate that nothing is sacred.  While they proclaim the moral high ground, there is nothing in their behavior that would suggest anything but a bunch of jaded jerks.  The irony of it all is that claim to be Christian.  One has to wonder what the hell gave them that delusion.

Of course, their religion is more steep in the tradition of the Old Testament.  They scan the passages of the bible looking for anything that will give them the right to trample on other people’s freedoms.  They are the silent majority and they have found their voice.

There was a time when their ignorance was a barrier to their activism.  When there was honest debate about issues, they stewed in their closed world frothing with the biases passed on from previous generations.  Over the years, this discontent festered and grew into an abscess of the soul.  It was the Archie Bunker generation, full of self importance and a knowledge that they were right though to the one they couldn’t explain what it was that made them think they the way they did.  They relied on allusions to god and country.  To those who disagreed they simply dismissed with name calling.  They red baited as a way of dismissing anything that interfered with their preconceived notions.  The sad thing is that they didn’t realize they were pawns in the game of power and control.

The history of crazy in this country goes back a long long way.  In modern times, we can point to Nixon, Reagan, and Bush.  Nixon kick started it when he claimed the south from the Democrats.  Reagan walked out of a 3rd rate acting career propped up with bigot money and heralded the age of dumb.  His one liners honed, more than likely by gag writers, struck the heart strings of the sleeping giant.  Never would he talk down to the masses (mainly because he like them was a shallow as a rain puddle).  His awwshucks non-answers appealed to those who had no response to the issues of the day that questioned their nonsense. Bush followed who with his genteel charm perfected the politics of ugly.   He employed Lee Atwater:  The evil genius behind the Willie Horton ads.   The master of twisting facts knew how to hit every latent and overt fear in a potential voter.  That W. , the dunce of modern times, and Rove his Svengali served under this man tells us much of how politics have become nothing less than the sad pathetic theater it is today.  The qualifications for a candidate has fallen so low that any idiot with an ego can enter the Republican primary.  That it is why the stage is so crowded.  You see, they don’t need to know anything, they don’t have to answer questions, they don’t even need to be factual.  They can mouthed buzz world and know that their constituents will nod their heads and think how right they are.  Science can be scorned.  Principles can be jettisoned.  Ethics can be dismissed.  Nothing of import matters, it is only important to hit the talking points. That women and children can be marginalized appeals to those who think they know what it is to be an American though they are descendants of immigrants.  They can talk about law and order while ignoring that guns are the chief factor in the crime rate.  They can live within a world of cognitive dissonance for their cliches and false beliefs sustain them.  You see they never question, and the ones who rise to the top of the dung heap are the ones who amuse the crowds of fools and feed their fears.

Almost any category of this population is under assault: women, gays, blacks, workers, the poor, seniors, students, etc. etc.  How is this possible?  How can this charade continue?  Where is the breaking point?  I am reminded of a song by the MC5 that came out in the 70’s, “Kick out the jams, motherfucker!!”

KIck Off 2016

The Age of Dumb

    Malcolm X observed on the death of Kennedy that the chickens have come home to roost.  Fast forward to present day and we have front and center perhaps the most obnoxious and arrogant ignoramus of our times standing atop the dung heap which is the field of candidates vying for the Republican nomination.  It is interesting to note that almost to the one this field is characterized by adherence to so called Christian beliefs and disdain for science.  One might legitimately ask how the political landscape has become populated with self-righteous arrogant fools who stand in opposition to any progress the species has made over the centuries.

    H. L. Mencken eloquently captured the current phenomenon when he stated, “No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”  That a buffoon like Trump can prance into the fray of a presidential election can be attributed to the constant and persistent attempt by the “new right” to shape public opinion by appealing to the basest of human proclivities.

The primary culprit in this mass deception is Roger Ailes and whoever is fronting the money to operate Fox News.  Murdoch is likeliest of suspect.  Whether he truly believes what is being aired is open to question, but there is no doubt he has a history of making money by exploiting the basest of instincts.  Why would his “news” service hack phones to pry into lives of people who possess public appeal?  Or worse why would a news organization exploit the death of a young woman?  Might he just be running this network for profit knowing all the while that hate exists in vast numbers of people and tapping into it can further his fortune?  That his papers employed sex to sell papers speaks to his understanding of human behavior, especially male human behavior.  How else can his band of provocateurs espouse hate and bigotry day after day using the weakest of arguments?   It isn’t really surprising that so many of his on-air people are mouthing a position that appeals to the worst of our instincts.  It is an old white racist philosophy that is triumphed, and key to this philosophy is ignorance and bigotry.  It is a way of keeping the exploited at each other’s throats while the moguls continue to rape and pillage the world and its people.  Excuse the Marxist interpretation.  

What was most amusing is when “The Donald” (only an arrogant asshole would take on that non de plume) pranced onto stage and stole the hearts and the minds of so many who look to Fox News for an affirmation of their fears and biases.  That Ms. Kelley, the point person designated to reign in the Monster of Capitalism, was marginalized by a misogynistic slur and rather than Trump’s poll numbers slipping they rose demonstrating that the monster was operating under his own power and no longer needed the juice from the Murdoch laboratory.  Flaying away, the monster began to trample on the would be sycophants sending their sorry asses to the shoulders of the Republican highway.  

What happened is classic.  Fox has been making it respectable to be an asshole bigot.  Just look at its team of commentators.  To the one, they mouth thinly veiled racist comments as well as advocating the most extreme and nonsensical positions on nearly any and all topics.  That Obama is targeted for every ill facing America and the World, and even his family is open to attacks, demonstrates an underlying business model designed to provoke and instill hate.  Of course, “The Donald” dropped a monkey wrench into the wheels of newly coined conservatism.   This is the underlying magic of Trump.  He is not subtle or cajoling.  No, he is what he is and what he is is a student of excess and bombast if not the prime master of it.

I do believe that there is a select group of monied people who knew they could buy their way into power.  Just look at the Congress.  Never have so many fools been elected to do little but to stand about and do nothing.  That the economy has been inverted to benefit the haves while the country falls to ruin demonstrates that greed has no limits.  That environmental concerns are ridiculed and waste and poisons heralded as good shows that corporate interest has replaced public interest.  That (excuse the alarmist if not conspiratorial allusions) moguls now have the power to release capital to shape and form and elect fools demonstrate that the republic is fracturing and perhaps is in its final throes.  Trump maybe our salvation for he is beholding to no one.  Walker, Huckabee, Bush, Carson, Cruz and all the rest of the assholes might just be coy enough to dupe the public into believing the horseshit philosophies and policies of the new right, but Trump is the logical end of all that bs.  He can be a unifying voice in the cacophony that has become the circus of the right   He is so blatantly over the top he can only appeal to the most desperate of us.  Many have flooded the Republican Party that has decided to go dumb and suckle the rich for money.  Trump can capture these folks.  Hopefully the rest of us will seize this opportunity and throw out all the mouth breathers who have been polling us to tell us what we wanted to hear while cozying up to those with money.