Idiots Elect Idiots

It’s Cool Though, Predators Love Idiots

Disturbing illustration by Geoffrey Deihl, not AI. Meme it at will.

This article was inspired by the ugly truck above. In the original, it was parked in front of a swimming pool, a picture on a car auction website called Bring a Trailer, that caters to mostly wealthy buyers with Porches, Lamborghinis, Jaguars, Shelby Mustangs and the like. As you can see, someone modified this nightmare to have six wheels, so it can be even heavier, more intimidating, and more dangerous to the rest of us. With six wheels it can gulp more fuel, spew out more global warming CO2, and leave more rubber particles on the road, destined for our water supply, while people die in record heat around the world. Canada, Greece, Italy and Spain are burning, but never mind. People are getting third degree burns from pavement in Phoenix, Arizona, but never mind. This is freedom American style, this is what makes America great, my freedom to hurt you for my own personal pleasure. Fist bump, please.

The last bid I saw for this psycho phallus terror stood at $157,000.

My primary reason for writing is to inform readers about the #ClimateEmergency, not to get into politics and our politically manufactured culture wars. However, our growingly desperate planet wide situation is the direct result of our choices, who we elect, what we buy, and how we behave. That truck represents an ignorance and selfishness that endangers all of us. Every person I included in that composition represents a failure of education and culture.

I’m no great fan of the Democratic Party. It isn’t what it used to be. I haven’t forgotten the seven-hundred-billion-dollar 2008 bailout of Wall Street, financed on taxpayer backs. Nine million Americans lost their jobs and nine million lost their homes. Zero major bank executives went to jail. In fact, CEOs gave themselves huge bonuses after wrecking lives and nearly creating a new Great Depression. How? Obama put the same people who tanked the economy in his cabinet. This list shows that, with its hedge fund managers and Goldman Sachs and Blackstone connections, among the millionaires who were architects of the bailout. The banks should have been nationalized, and these white collar criminals should have gone to prison. What if the bailout money had gone directly to taxpayers instead? Instant economic stimulus and justice served.

But of course, that’s not how it works.

The fact is, both parties have turned into revolving doors of legislators, regulators and lobbyists, that have encouraged mega-mergers, sent good jobs overseas, suppressed unions, and funneled wealth to the top.

That said, however, I have to give the Republican Party credit for being far more destructive than the divided Democrats, who have onerously skewed further and further right in my lifetime. The Republicans are united in their single-minded will to divide the nation, so they can keep stealing. Stop the steal my ass. Stealing is what they do. They weren’t even satisfied with the latest iteration of trickle-down economics, the 2017 Paul Ryan tax cut passed by Trump and friends that sent $1.5 trillion to the wealthiest in America. And still they want more. They want your social security and Medicare, and have said so. We PAID for those benefits. They don’t care if you’re ruined from the medical bills of a for-profit system that prioritizes your healthcare based on wealth.

Like millions of other Americans, I watched in disbelief as January 6 unfolded. We literally watched a president attempt a coup on live television. That our legal system is so cumbersome he still walks free with the hope of getting reelected and could escape justice is a horror show.

How? How could this happen?

I am no fan of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, but they are products of our society. We created them. Many in those groups like myself are older white males. Many have been marginalized by the so-called progress of society. Many are also racists, homophobes, and antisemites. When people are outcast, particularly when they lose economic security, those ugly feelings become exploitable. There is also the matter of poor education that makes this possible. Critical thinking skills aren’t born, they’re learned.

Let’s call out elitism, while we’re at it. Hilary, who had the poor judgement to refer to some of the people I am touching on here as deplorables was remarkably stupid and out of touch.

The Republican Party has long recognized these weaknesses and harnessed them perfectly. Trump blew the lid off, bringing open racism and rioting to our streets.

Free Speech Should Not Be Freedom to Lie

This has also been accomplished through the billionaire owned mainstream media. Free speech is routinely exercised in this country as the freedom to lie. There is no restraint, or accountability. Republicans have used the tools that Rupert Murdock and his so-called news provides, serial liars such as deposed Info Wars Alex Jones, thankfully deceased Medal of Freedom winner Rush Limbaugh (good one orange wig boy), and legions of lesser slime barking away. People make fortunes lying. It amuses me that Tucker Carlson actually became a problem, to his dear, old, Rupert.

This, with the often pernicious internet (so much for the promise of the information age) is how the ludicrous conspiracy theories of Pizzagate and QAnon were able to rise, aided by ignorance, poverty, and self-serving manipulation. Trump and so-called alt-right politicians (I guess “alt” gives them legitimacy) allowed and encouraged these ideas to flourish for political gain.

Let’s call out elitism, while we’re at it. Hilary, who had the poor judgement to refer to some of the people I am touching on here as deplorables was remarkably stupid and out of touch. She also falsely claimed to come under attack in a C-17 transport plane in Bosnia. Pretty deplorable.

Christian Fundamentalists

There’s another disturbing element in play, the rise of Christian fundamentalist nationalism, which wishes to inflict its views on every person in this country. Certainly, there is a strong racist, homophobic, antisemite element in that, too.

It’s remarkable to me, that people who call themselves Christian and supposedly occupy a higher moral ground (apologies, I know it’s not ALL Christians), could vote for a man who would grab their daughter’s genitals, if he thought she was good-looking enough to merit the honor. Hey, the orange groper has standards.

Then there are guns. The best way to promote alternate facts, as if there can be alternate facts (not so much) is with the threat of violence. This is also a remarkable hypocrisy to me. I don’t understand people who can ignore children forced to hide under the bodies of their murdered classmates in our schools. I am not anti-guns per se, but guns are out of control in this country, and guess what? If you think your arsenal is going to stop the government from getting you, revisit David Koresh and the Branch Davidian massacre in Waco, Texas, okay?

The government is already getting you. Have you noticed the wealth disparity in this country? How do you think that happens? If you’re voting Republican, you’re asking for more of that, not that the Dems are a wonderful party. But really, open your eyes. Thanks to Donald Trump, the merely cancerous Republican Party is now an all out zombie tumor monster, embracing fascism.

Civilization is built on agriculture. If agriculture fails, civilization will go down with it. Do you hear this message in the media? Do you hear this message from our politicians? Of course not.

Here’s the thing. While we’re all bickering, some even think teetering on civil war, we’re missing the threat common to all of us, the #ClimateEmergency. We are witnessing weather patterns change before our eyes as the planet burns and floods, displacing and killing hundreds of thousands, to millions, already, and this is just the beginning. With the return of El Niño, it’s much worse. If we don’t unite over this issue, we’re done. Special mention to Joe Manchin here, who blows anything that squirts oil and undermined the Inflation Reduction Act, along with Kyrsten Sinema, pharmaceutical industry puppet.

The bottom line is that #ClimateChange now threatens the global food supply. Civilization is built on agriculture. If agriculture fails, civilization will go down with it. Do you hear this message in the media? Do you hear this message from our politicians? Of course not. They live in a different world that either doesn’t recognize the gravity of our situation, or are making so much money that they don’t give a damn. They don’t think you or I are their equals, or we would be in their positions. They are superior and perfectly comfortable watching us die. We see that on a daily basis now, with the horrific fires and flooding taking place all over the world at scales unprecedented in human existence.

The planet is 4.6 billion years old. Dinosaurs roamed for seven million years, and weren’t responsible for own their demise. We Homo sapiens who appeared a mere 300,000 years ago, only 6,000 of that in a state we questionably call civilized, have brought a perfect planet to her knees in about three hundred. The fossil fuels we harnessed, now promise our own extinction, or at least reduction to a handful of rags, picking through some burned out ruins for a can of beans. This, in spite of full awareness by many, including CEOs and politicians who know the score, but pretend not to for personal gain. We simply must stop emitting greenhouse gasses immediately. Every pound of CO2 and methane released is costing lives. We’re on our own. They aren’t coming to save us. They will run this unsustainable system until it crashes, and it is crashing, right now.

Biden approved a huge oil drilling operation in Alaska, just months ago, that appears militarily motivated from my research. Britain PM Rishi Sunak just approved hundreds of new oil leases in the North Sea. Our leaders are making some terrible choices that will take more lives, unnecessarily.

Our most important problem isn’t Republican or Democrat. Our most important problem is the health of the planet. We must recognize it and demand it’s addressed. That’s going to involve getting in the street and facing police who are trained to protect the infrastructure of fossil fuels and wealth. People will go to jail, people will die in the effort, but if we don’t, the question becomes the one T.S. Elliot posed, whether the world ends with a bang, or a whimper, in his poem, The Hollow Men. I don’t care for his conclusion. A whimper is unacceptable to me. First stanza, and last two lines of his work:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Fighting gives us a chance. Have a calm conversation with a person of opposing views today. Listen. Persuade. Fight.