The Fossil
Fundraising maven Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wants to be Speaker of the House--again. The Democratic Establishment supports her ambition. Her "experience" is the main thing touted as her prime qualification. She helped President Obama push through the Affordable Care Act, known colloquially as Obamacare, also as Romneycare, as in Mitt Romney, who adopted the plan many years ago as Republican Governor of Massachusetts. The plan, generated by the Heritage Foundation, a right wing think tank, is still the low rung on the health care ladder bragged about by corporate Democrats. It enriches the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries, those behemoths powering the campaigns of corporate Democratic politicians, the kinds of leaders propagandizing for Pelosi to be the next Speaker of the House.
Pro-Pelosi politicians, Donald Trump (who endorses her as Speaker) among them, are aided in corporate news media by pundits and insiders, all robotically mouthing the same praises for an unimpressive longtime politician who makes her comfortable multi-millionaire living appealing to "liberal" and Neo-Liberal donors for huge amounts of cash to keep the Democratic Party rolling on its way to change by gradualism--change that never comes, because the Democratic establishment, like its Republican sibling, is obsessed with money and cares not for those who don't have it.
Pelosi, on a Sunday morning show a while back, talked about her qualifications to be the next Speaker, bragging only about her fundraising abilities. The word millions attaches itself to her character like an ugly barnacle. There's no soul or breadth of ideas inside that woman. She epitomizes the sickness inside the Democratic Party, the so-called opposition, the hashtag Resistance, which includes Democratic luminaries like former Vice President Joe Biden presenting the Liberty Medal to George and Laura Bush on Veterans Day. Biden spoke of the noxious atmosphere in Washington, the loss of civility. He makes it seem as if ordinary Americans suffer from the fact that Republicans and Democrats don't always speak nicely to each other, not from lack of health care, clean water, and endless warfare sucking the American economy dry--the latter a condition hoped for by none other than Osama bin Laden.
"President Bush was my opponent, not my enemy," Biden said.
Biden voted for the Iraq War, the Afghan War, so as far as killing people goes it seems they agree with each other wholeheartedly. To get the Liberty Medal, I guess it helps to order the creation of a torture program, and then wait about fifteen years for someone so buffoonish to become president that the torturer/war criminal seems like the Good Old Days.
Pelosi, the night she won Congressional re-election in California, spoke of seeking unity with Republicans--with a party committed, evidently, to doing nothing to stop the ecocide that will kill everyone, leading to a time when being a millionaire will no longer be relevant, and greed-motivated shits like Pelosi, already old, will be long dead.
Vic Neptune
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Friday, November 9, 2018
I Was a Religious Studies Major in College
Democrats will have a majority in the House of Representatives. What will they do with that power? From what I've heard, committees will form to investigate Donald Trump, because, apparently, that's what the American people need more than Medicare for all, a living wage, an end to our wars, a jobs program, a new emphasis on improving infrastructure, and free college.
An ex-Marine with PTSD massacred people in a California bar. Senator Marsha Blackburn (who looks like a past-middle-age Debbie Reynolds) reacted on Fox News by first insisting on the need to stand by the Second Amendment. She also mentioned mental health without elaborating on any of her ideas, if any, on the subject. The murderer, a war veteran, acquired his killing skills in another country. He came back to his own country, not taken care of properly by a government eager to send people overseas as tools of corporations, standing guard over Exxon Mobil's stake in the Arabic-speaking parts of the planet.
Marsha Blackburn, a longtime Washington politician in spite of her Tennessee accent and good Southern manners, cares more about the "right" to own automatic weapons than about the people they reduce to horizontal unmoving positions on reddening ground.
I wrote a previous post entitled Sick Fuck Jesus. It poses the question, What if Jesus was a sick fuck? Christian politicians, like Blackburn (a Presbyterian), often believe in and get legislation passed that is the opposite of Jesus' views as expressed in the Gospels. She supports the idea of Donald Trump receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Picture it: Trump, Man of Peace. It's like suggesting that John Bolton is a Flower Child.
If Jesus was a sick fuck, though, it would make sense--maybe the Gospel translations are faulty? Blessed are the poor? No, fuck the poor! Blessed are the Haves, those who receive the benefits from the tax cut for the 1%. Blessed is the Pentagon for being unable to account for the loss of 21 trillion dollars.
Marsha Blackburn is for traditional marriage. She sticks it to the Gays, the Lesbians. Somehow, that significant portion of the American population marrying each other affects her personal life. It's mystifying, like the moment Thomas put his hand (not his cock) into Jesus' resurrected side.
National Anthem kneeling protests get Marsha's goat, too, spoiling her Sundays. She wants a border wall between Mexico and the U.S. Her views are Trumpian; which is to say, Trump's views are Republican--he just offends some in his party because he's such a boor. Rich, "classy" folks don't like boors. Or the homeless. Or mentally ill veterans. Or sick people with no insurance. The lepers of our society, so to speak.
Marsha is against net neutrality, saying it's "socialistic." Think of anything beneficial to most Americans and Senator Blackburn is against it. As a Christian, perhaps, she fits that description. I suggest that it can be Christian to be a horrible person, believing heavily in a set of spiritually elevating beliefs (above others) that were pushed from an early age.
Jesus wasn't a Christian, he was a Jew. Arguably, a Jewish heretic. One can be Christlike and not be a Christian. The Jesus who wasn't a sick fuck said that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into Heaven. What does that mean? Exactly what it says!
I accept that Blackburn and Paul Ryan, Mike Huckabee, the Bush family, the Obamas, and many others among the powerful are all Christians; in varying degrees manifesting immorality and committing evil acts, including blowing people to smithereens, all in service to capitalistic and power consolidation goals having nothing to do with Freedom, Liberty, the American Way, the Shining City on a Hill; having nothing either to do with beliefs as demonstrated by the words of Jesus, who was tortured and murdered because he offended the assholes running the show in the Province of Judea, circa A.D. 33. Were Jesus to come back now with the same philosophy, people in power, like those mentioned above, would have him killed, making them literally Antichrist. I don't mean the Devil when I write Antichrist, but someone on the opposing side of Christ as represented by Jesus' words and compassionate acts in the Gospels. Did George W. Bush, Michelle Obama's fun new friend, kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis because he's Christlike?
Marsha Blackburn doesn't believe in climate change.
Marsha Blackburn is an idiot.
Democrats will have power in the House of Representatives so who wants to be the Speaker of the House? The same seventy-eight year old who shouldn't be, Nancy Pelosi, the champion fundraiser who cares most about money and maintaining the status quo in her party. A dinosaur.
Dinosaurs, remember, also witnessed climate change.
Vic Neptune
Democrats will have a majority in the House of Representatives. What will they do with that power? From what I've heard, committees will form to investigate Donald Trump, because, apparently, that's what the American people need more than Medicare for all, a living wage, an end to our wars, a jobs program, a new emphasis on improving infrastructure, and free college.
An ex-Marine with PTSD massacred people in a California bar. Senator Marsha Blackburn (who looks like a past-middle-age Debbie Reynolds) reacted on Fox News by first insisting on the need to stand by the Second Amendment. She also mentioned mental health without elaborating on any of her ideas, if any, on the subject. The murderer, a war veteran, acquired his killing skills in another country. He came back to his own country, not taken care of properly by a government eager to send people overseas as tools of corporations, standing guard over Exxon Mobil's stake in the Arabic-speaking parts of the planet.
Marsha Blackburn, a longtime Washington politician in spite of her Tennessee accent and good Southern manners, cares more about the "right" to own automatic weapons than about the people they reduce to horizontal unmoving positions on reddening ground.
I wrote a previous post entitled Sick Fuck Jesus. It poses the question, What if Jesus was a sick fuck? Christian politicians, like Blackburn (a Presbyterian), often believe in and get legislation passed that is the opposite of Jesus' views as expressed in the Gospels. She supports the idea of Donald Trump receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Picture it: Trump, Man of Peace. It's like suggesting that John Bolton is a Flower Child.
If Jesus was a sick fuck, though, it would make sense--maybe the Gospel translations are faulty? Blessed are the poor? No, fuck the poor! Blessed are the Haves, those who receive the benefits from the tax cut for the 1%. Blessed is the Pentagon for being unable to account for the loss of 21 trillion dollars.
Marsha Blackburn is for traditional marriage. She sticks it to the Gays, the Lesbians. Somehow, that significant portion of the American population marrying each other affects her personal life. It's mystifying, like the moment Thomas put his hand (not his cock) into Jesus' resurrected side.
National Anthem kneeling protests get Marsha's goat, too, spoiling her Sundays. She wants a border wall between Mexico and the U.S. Her views are Trumpian; which is to say, Trump's views are Republican--he just offends some in his party because he's such a boor. Rich, "classy" folks don't like boors. Or the homeless. Or mentally ill veterans. Or sick people with no insurance. The lepers of our society, so to speak.
Marsha is against net neutrality, saying it's "socialistic." Think of anything beneficial to most Americans and Senator Blackburn is against it. As a Christian, perhaps, she fits that description. I suggest that it can be Christian to be a horrible person, believing heavily in a set of spiritually elevating beliefs (above others) that were pushed from an early age.
Jesus wasn't a Christian, he was a Jew. Arguably, a Jewish heretic. One can be Christlike and not be a Christian. The Jesus who wasn't a sick fuck said that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into Heaven. What does that mean? Exactly what it says!
I accept that Blackburn and Paul Ryan, Mike Huckabee, the Bush family, the Obamas, and many others among the powerful are all Christians; in varying degrees manifesting immorality and committing evil acts, including blowing people to smithereens, all in service to capitalistic and power consolidation goals having nothing to do with Freedom, Liberty, the American Way, the Shining City on a Hill; having nothing either to do with beliefs as demonstrated by the words of Jesus, who was tortured and murdered because he offended the assholes running the show in the Province of Judea, circa A.D. 33. Were Jesus to come back now with the same philosophy, people in power, like those mentioned above, would have him killed, making them literally Antichrist. I don't mean the Devil when I write Antichrist, but someone on the opposing side of Christ as represented by Jesus' words and compassionate acts in the Gospels. Did George W. Bush, Michelle Obama's fun new friend, kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis because he's Christlike?
Marsha Blackburn doesn't believe in climate change.
Marsha Blackburn is an idiot.
Democrats will have power in the House of Representatives so who wants to be the Speaker of the House? The same seventy-eight year old who shouldn't be, Nancy Pelosi, the champion fundraiser who cares most about money and maintaining the status quo in her party. A dinosaur.
Dinosaurs, remember, also witnessed climate change.
Vic Neptune
Sunday, November 4, 2018
Snow Blind
One of my local TV news stations has a promo showing the weatherman flanked by the veteran anchorwoman and the young pretty reporter, all of them with jaw-straining smiles, announcing what'll be on tomorrow morning's show. Taking quick turns, each puts in a datum, an enticement to watch, concluding with "We're giving away a snowblower!"
The winner will receive a machine that will need fuel, maintenance, and housing. The new owner's prize means work. His city's ordinances include keeping his front publicly used sidewalk
"clean" after snowfalls.
Use of a snowblower beats a shovel, I admit. Still, the prizewinner will have a heavy piece of equipment to operate and store. It may last five years or eight, maybe two before needing repairs.
On Fox, an NFL game between the Detroit Lions and the Minnesota Vikings has, as decoration, a military theme. A baby-faced Navy enlisted man stands at attention, expressionless, a sentinel. If he's watching the game, he also looks like he might wave flags to signal "go" to a fighter jet pilot on his way to dismember human beings who don't speak English. One of the announcers reminds us that it's important to support our troops, that "this is the greatest country in the world." The small towels carried by the players are camouflage. Shiny olive drab jackets worn by coaching staffs of both teams have American flag patches sewn on the upper sleeves.
The other announcer expressed his eagerness to watch the Fox TV show 9-1-1. Judging from ads, the show combines the 1970s show about paramedics, Emergency!, with contemporary unrealistic cop drama (Angela Bassett, a Black actress, plays a police sergeant), and firefighters. Throw in Baywatch lifeguards and the L.A. porn industry and the show would be complete. I haven't seen the show, don't want to, but it's illustrative of what passes for serious network television in this post-9/11 mediascape.
9/11, the catastrophic event seventeen years ago, is now a TV series, 9-1-1. Starting in Season Two, Jennifer Love Hewitt has joined the cast as the best-looking 911 dispatcher ever. Hewitt was the Ghost Whisperer in 107 episodes, a woman who could communicate with the dead, acting as a conduit between the ghost's troubled loved ones, enabling all parties to reconcile and say farewell. What I saw of that series a decade ago was at times impressive as drama, even if not realistic (given the supernatural premise). Still, Ghost Whisperer was more human, more capable of demonstrating emotions and soulful concerns than most if not all of the cop shows or military themed programs on TV today.
SEAL Team, a CBS show in its second season, depicts its military men as troubled, intense, yes, but not the hard core killers they probably are by now, given that the SEALs have been operating covertly and murderously during the entire seventeen years since 9/11. On October 17 I saw part of one episode. The Wikipedia description follows:
"While holding a funeral for Alana, Jason is forced to step down as team leader to focus on his children, with fellow SEAL Adam Seaver taking his place. Ray joins the rest of the team at Jason's request and is deployed to Mumbai to rescue a foreign service officer, only to find out their hostage has been relocated."
Mumbai, India? Not Pakistan, or Yemen, or Somalia, or Syria?
Jason loves his children so much that he's "forced" to focus on them. The bit that I saw showed a daughter of around thirteen years trying to communicate with her monosyllabic and preoccupied father. He obviously would prefer to be aiming his gun at a Muslim.
It isn't big news that TV fails the human mind. Not always the case. David Attenborough's documentaries about life on Earth, with their crisp, spectacular cinematography showing places and animals you never imagined existed, edify the brain and heart, inducing awe, plus a sense of poignancy and impending loss, since so much of what he shows and narrates about is dying out and will be lost due to the follies of human neglect and ambition.
Eye candy showing a luscious 911 dispatcher, played by someone who used to address the ghosts of our painful new century, doesn't stimulate anything other than the parts of our minds given to sensationalism, and isn't that what most news is?
Enter a contest and you may win a snowblower, or witness a gorgeous actress taking desperate calls in a show obliquely named after the key event at the beginning of this century, the spark that's destroyed so many possibilities, growing conditions for lies, like the one that hooks militarism to sporting contests and gives us so many TV entertainment shows which make no sense in terms of human realities.
Vic Neptune
One of my local TV news stations has a promo showing the weatherman flanked by the veteran anchorwoman and the young pretty reporter, all of them with jaw-straining smiles, announcing what'll be on tomorrow morning's show. Taking quick turns, each puts in a datum, an enticement to watch, concluding with "We're giving away a snowblower!"
The winner will receive a machine that will need fuel, maintenance, and housing. The new owner's prize means work. His city's ordinances include keeping his front publicly used sidewalk
"clean" after snowfalls.
Use of a snowblower beats a shovel, I admit. Still, the prizewinner will have a heavy piece of equipment to operate and store. It may last five years or eight, maybe two before needing repairs.
On Fox, an NFL game between the Detroit Lions and the Minnesota Vikings has, as decoration, a military theme. A baby-faced Navy enlisted man stands at attention, expressionless, a sentinel. If he's watching the game, he also looks like he might wave flags to signal "go" to a fighter jet pilot on his way to dismember human beings who don't speak English. One of the announcers reminds us that it's important to support our troops, that "this is the greatest country in the world." The small towels carried by the players are camouflage. Shiny olive drab jackets worn by coaching staffs of both teams have American flag patches sewn on the upper sleeves.
The other announcer expressed his eagerness to watch the Fox TV show 9-1-1. Judging from ads, the show combines the 1970s show about paramedics, Emergency!, with contemporary unrealistic cop drama (Angela Bassett, a Black actress, plays a police sergeant), and firefighters. Throw in Baywatch lifeguards and the L.A. porn industry and the show would be complete. I haven't seen the show, don't want to, but it's illustrative of what passes for serious network television in this post-9/11 mediascape.
9/11, the catastrophic event seventeen years ago, is now a TV series, 9-1-1. Starting in Season Two, Jennifer Love Hewitt has joined the cast as the best-looking 911 dispatcher ever. Hewitt was the Ghost Whisperer in 107 episodes, a woman who could communicate with the dead, acting as a conduit between the ghost's troubled loved ones, enabling all parties to reconcile and say farewell. What I saw of that series a decade ago was at times impressive as drama, even if not realistic (given the supernatural premise). Still, Ghost Whisperer was more human, more capable of demonstrating emotions and soulful concerns than most if not all of the cop shows or military themed programs on TV today.
SEAL Team, a CBS show in its second season, depicts its military men as troubled, intense, yes, but not the hard core killers they probably are by now, given that the SEALs have been operating covertly and murderously during the entire seventeen years since 9/11. On October 17 I saw part of one episode. The Wikipedia description follows:
"While holding a funeral for Alana, Jason is forced to step down as team leader to focus on his children, with fellow SEAL Adam Seaver taking his place. Ray joins the rest of the team at Jason's request and is deployed to Mumbai to rescue a foreign service officer, only to find out their hostage has been relocated."
Mumbai, India? Not Pakistan, or Yemen, or Somalia, or Syria?
Jason loves his children so much that he's "forced" to focus on them. The bit that I saw showed a daughter of around thirteen years trying to communicate with her monosyllabic and preoccupied father. He obviously would prefer to be aiming his gun at a Muslim.
It isn't big news that TV fails the human mind. Not always the case. David Attenborough's documentaries about life on Earth, with their crisp, spectacular cinematography showing places and animals you never imagined existed, edify the brain and heart, inducing awe, plus a sense of poignancy and impending loss, since so much of what he shows and narrates about is dying out and will be lost due to the follies of human neglect and ambition.
Eye candy showing a luscious 911 dispatcher, played by someone who used to address the ghosts of our painful new century, doesn't stimulate anything other than the parts of our minds given to sensationalism, and isn't that what most news is?
Enter a contest and you may win a snowblower, or witness a gorgeous actress taking desperate calls in a show obliquely named after the key event at the beginning of this century, the spark that's destroyed so many possibilities, growing conditions for lies, like the one that hooks militarism to sporting contests and gives us so many TV entertainment shows which make no sense in terms of human realities.
Vic Neptune
Thursday, November 1, 2018
The Value of Self-Esteem and Having At Least Some Doubts
The man who murdered eleven people in a Pittsburgh synagogue last Saturday pleaded not guilty to those crimes. Robert Bowers, anti-Semite, owner of twenty-one guns, made no secret of his hatred of Jews. Referring to them in online posts as the "enemy of white people," he also called immigrants "invaders," a notion that should tie in with President Trump's hysterical overreaction (propagandized by Fox News Channel) to the thousands of Central Americans walking north, seeking asylum in the United States. In Bowers' view, however, Trump "is a globalist, not a nationalist. There is no #MAGA [Make America Great Again--Trump's 2016 campaign slogan] as long as there is a [Jewish] infestation."
"Jews are the children of Satan," Bowers wrote. He is clearly a man who, like too many people, believes his opinions are also facts, something he has in common with Donald Trump, who, as far as I can tell, doesn't hate or love Jews, but will use or not use them according to his own purposes, much like most American politicians.
Bowers' final message before committing the massacre reads, "I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in."
His use of the word optics in relation to the act of spraying bullets at unarmed peaceful worshippers minding their own business indicates Bowers' pushed-to-the-edge (by his own psyche?) feeling that it was finally time to make a statement, to be a White Hero, willing to sacrifice his life, or at least his freedom, for an overwhelmed and victimized population of Honkies. God knows, if you do some serious research, you'll find that White people, especially White men, are the most abused and victimized people in human history. Wealthy White men, like Donald Trump, are mistreated and scorned, just because they're rich and White.
It's weird how the dominant White race can't summon the power to overwhelm its darker-skinned enemies. You'd think that such a powerful mega-race would be able to control such weaker examples of humanity. Bowers, like all assholes with guns going against unarmed "opponents," believes in his own bravery. How many Israeli snipers killing and wounding thousands of Palestinian protestors last summer enjoyed doing that? If you believe you're snuffing out vermin (note Bowers' use of the word infestation), it might tickle sadistic impulses. I can't accept that the Israeli snipers shot all those Palestinians because they admire Palestinians.
Trump, like many Presidents of the past, kills people by remote control or through the giving of orders. Civilian casualties these days don't get tallied in any definitive way. For one thing, the U.S. military kills so many people, has been doing so for many decades, it's not possible to get accurate counts. Defense Department warlocks and generals don't care about the human damage they cause. Destructiveness of weapons and weapon systems is studied, improved upon for future uses. Anti-personnel sound weapons, tried out first in the 1989 invasion of Panama, are now employed against U.S. citizens, including at the 2016 Democratic Convention to drown out protestors while controversial warmongering speakers, like Leon Panetta, were at the podium.
Robert Bowers missed his time and place. In 1933 he would've made an effective Brownshirt in Nazi Germany, a low-ranking member, but capable at the task of abusing Jews, homosexuals, political opponents of the government, and doing property damage. A state-backed vandal.
According to reports from Pittsburgh, Bowers was a loner. He had more guns than any one person needs. His fantasies, apparently, dwelt on extermination of vast numbers of people. Survivors of his outrageous, stupid, and vicious act will remember him, but he'll be forgotten by the American people in a few weeks or less. The continuous pornography of the ratings driven news media cycle will pave over Bowers' extended middle finger at "optics," bringing new outrages, violent or at least troubling, as well as news corporations' constant obsession with mediocre men and women running this country, while innocent people die in the industrial killing machine drama of the War on Terror, which could be called the War of Terror States Hoodwinking People Into Believing They're Fighting Terrorism.
Vic Neptune
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