"yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck(#?)
Fuck me! Fuck me!
Fuck you! Fuck you!
Fuck everyone! Fuck the church! Fuck Jesus! Fuck Mary! Fuck the Jews! Fuck the Buddhists! Fuck the Hindus! Fuck George Bush! Fuck his ugly wife! Fuck Che Guevara! Fuck Everyone! Fuck Gorbachev! Fuck Noriega! Fuck all these assholes! Fuck you! Fuck me! Fuck all of you! A-hah! Stigmata! Stigmata! Stigmata! Stigmata! Stigmata. Stigmata. Stigmaataaaaaaa... They tell me nothing but lies! Lies! Lies! Lies! Lies! Lies! Lies! Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, LIEEEESSS!"
Ministry - the much improved live version of Stigmata
(go ahead and pick whichever George Bush you'd like to fuck depending on your generation)
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"so inconspicuous an observer, watching Senator Windrip from so humble a Boeotia, could not explain his power of bewitching large audiences. The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his "ideas" almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store.
Certainly there was nothing exhilarating in the actual words of his speeches, nor anything convincing in his philosophy. His political platforms were only wings of a windmill. Seven years before his present credo--derived from Lee Sarason, Hitler, Gottfried Feder, Rocco, and probably the revue Of Thee I Sing--little Buzz, back home, had advocated nothing more revolutionary than better beef stew in the county poor-farms, and plenty of graft for loyal machine politicians, with jobs for their brothers-in-law, nephews, law partners, and creditors."
Certainly there was nothing exhilarating in the actual words of his speeches, nor anything convincing in his philosophy. His political platforms were only wings of a windmill. Seven years before his present credo--derived from Lee Sarason, Hitler, Gottfried Feder, Rocco, and probably the revue Of Thee I Sing--little Buzz, back home, had advocated nothing more revolutionary than better beef stew in the county poor-farms, and plenty of graft for loyal machine politicians, with jobs for their brothers-in-law, nephews, law partners, and creditors."
Sinclair Lewis - It Can't Happen Here (1935)
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"Marius Priscus, formerly Proconsul of Africa, being impeached by that Province, instead of defending the suit, petitioned that his case might be referred to a special commission. Cornelius Tacitus and myself, being assigned by the Senate counsel for that province, thought it our duty to inform the House, that the crimes alleged against Priscus were of too atrocious a nature to fall within the cognizance of a commission ; for he was charged with accepting bribes to condemn, and even to execute, innocent persons."
Pliny the Younger, 100 A.D.
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Well, for today I was planning to follow through on what I told myself to do last time and WRITE down another of my various short story ideas... but I can't resist the opportune <PERFECTLY VALID SOCIAL DUTY> to procrastinate comment on last week's No Kings demonstrations instead. Which were, in contrast to five years ago, exactly not what the Black Lives Matter riots failed not to be, which is to say were not riots, though a fair amount of riotous, cathartic mockery of the criminal establishment was freely shared. Supposedly. According to footage. I did not attend, as I do not attend. Anything. I did expect the different flavor. The demographics are now different, the cause and crimes clear instead of some nebulous "institutionalized" evil, the motivation conscious survival rather than a spastic herd lurch motivated partly by coronavirus-induced cabin fever. And all the reactionary Foxy media sources who had loudly panic-mongered against a communist revolution were hilariously forced to pivot to complaining the protests were just too... boring. Quelle horreur!
Now, the senior citizens trotting the samba with frogs and my little ponies, that I did not expect. (Also, you're totally biting Brazil's act!) But even that comes as a welcome relief. Though left-wing obsessions can be moronic, insane, exploitative, dishonest or dangerous, they at least come up with new ones now and again. From the right wing, true to the title of "conservative" you always get the same stupid centennially musty shit. Some jumped-up scheister with a gnat's IQ, a gift for babbling incoherently but loudly and a hefty streak of paranoia gets embraced by the hoi polloi as everything that makes illiterate rabble great again, then proclaims he's been handed a holy quest (likely through holy visitation) to rid the father/mother/cousinland of subversive alien influences (conveniently letting the core constituency blame the fruits of their own stupidity on scapegoats) and promising to indulge all his followers' most murderous impulses must therefore glorify militaristic repression, because he sure as hell has not surrounded himself with any supply of intellect or creativity.
But whether in '35 or the new '25 they never have any trouble surrounding themselves with... something. Some kindred breed of mindlessly grasping, superstitious primitive ape. Even if you manage to oust the king, Richelieu and the Sheriff of Nottingham will remain in place. What do you do with the collaborators and the collaborators' collaborators, and the endless hordes of petty bureaucrats which replaced their intellectual betters by merely mouthing an oath of allegiance to the tyrant? They will continue to drag the system ever downwards, every lickspittle Church Lady promoting the dogma that America should be a society by the poor for the rich. The ball that Reagan set rolling half a century ago was merely sped along its path by subsequent administrations, not by any Machiavellian machinations, not by any shady conspiracies, but because the vast majority of the public is quite simply stupid enough to idolize powermongering. Not uninformed. Not uneducated. Intrinsically, genetically, irredeemably stupid.
The Roman Senate grudgingly approved, after much deliberation including a four-plus-hour accusatory speech by Pliny, a punishment for the corrupt African governor... of shaking him down for cash and "exiling" him from Italy. Not from the whole of the empire, mind you, just from the heartland. Half of them had wanted to let their buddy Marius remain a senator, and just let him off with a fine. For executing innocents for cash. So, back to our future, even if you manage to dethrone the tyrant, what will you do with all the officials who have colluded in the destruction of public health and safety, of education, of the justice department, colluded also with the military invasion of civilian homes, with dragging American citizens off the street into unjustified detainment? How will you handle the endless ICE hoodlums, judges, and the whole fifty million Red Caps so enthusiastically applauding The Dear Leader's crimes? Taking their lunch money and exiling them from the District of Columbia won't work. Because we know how this went for the Romans. Pliny and his ally Tacitus may have been honest enough to refuse collusion with such corruption, but the majority of senators or indeed of Romans were not. Pardon by pardon, bribe by bribe, power grab by power grab the empire rotted, not because of one Caligula or Nero but because the public and bureaucracy, from slaves to patricians, from Albion to Memphis, cheered one bad emperor after another, endlessly, so long as the bread and circuses and most importantly the kickbacks kept flowing.
Until it ended.
Because that's what "conservative" means. Always the same old stupid shit.
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