Sunday, November 6th 2022. Week 44
It’s a quarter to four on a rainy Sunday morning. I’m watching game 6 of the World Series and thinking about cleaning up. I am expecting my ex partner today but possibly also an important guest. I don’t absolutely know about whether this gift is going to show up or not, whether they are going to be a part of the conversation or even what I’m supposed to do with them other than be happy to see them but all of this is in the mix.
I’m warm enough exactly where I am but generally I should light a fire. I didn’t like one last night because I myself was okay but again, it was the same situation. I really should have added the additional warmth to the room.
I’ve been spending some time in the office which in itself is a bit of a paradox. Usually, there would be no way I could sit in there for a long time because the room is so cold. I’ve been using it as a room to dry mushrooms though and because of this, it’s actually even too warm a place to sit in. It’s also uncomfortable because it is bloody expensive to heat that room with the space heater. That thing eats electricity like my neighbors consume alcohol and cigarettes. I’ve agreed that the additional cost was worth it for a winter’s worth of forest mushrooms. My natural cheapness however makes me regret every second. If I had a better situation, I would be using it.
Speaking of spending money, I can’t get off this delivery website. I’ve already made another order of food, this one for hot peppers and other things that I don’t have much opportunity for. I’m buying in bulk so these things should last but it still costs money. With the exchange rate, it’s not really that horrible. The numbers get large but I keep forgetting that it’s 2.5 rubles to the dollar. I’m not really killing myself so much. But yesterday I was back in there again looking for gardening tools. My American friends tell me I’m not alone. There is a reason that Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is one of the richest guys in the world. Once a consumer, always a consumer.
The big problem from the end of last week and even yesterday is that my legs are killing me. That trip to town did not require so much walking around but it was enough to leave me very sore. I really do need some attention from Minsk but it is never coming. In a moment of reason or a lack of fear, my ex partner told me exactly the route to take to take action against my blackmailing bureaucrat. I heard her say the words and mention the exact place to make the complaint. I know she knows this information. But she is dedicated to the KGB which is another way of saying she refuses to allow herself to be objectified and identified as participating in any anti-government activity. She buried the information as quickly as she showed it. She’s making up for it with additional human warmth. Lying and hiding dangerous information is an aphrodisiac to Russian women.
With the US elections just 2 days away, seriously, isn’t fascism fun? I was thinking that the Ukrainian War is a perfect metaphor or even a physical representation of American politics these days. The Democrats are strongly on the side of Ukrainian Independence and fairness and freedom from oppression. The Republicans are clearly in bed deeply with the Russians and do not care any damn thing But continuing as much destruction and oppression as they can and regardless of costs. The Russians demand that they have the right to do what they want on their neighbor’s territory just as the Republicans demand to have the full right of moral decision over people who have nothing even resembling the rights of the decision making class. The Democrats are fighting for their right to take responsibility for their lives and retain their rights to vote. The conservatives just want to keep people under stress and buying from Mr Bezos as much as possible so as to keep the oil flowing and the dollars along with it.
As for me, I am spending a bit of money here that normally I wouldn’t spend. Perhaps it has something to do with the season. This does seem to be the time to stock up for winter. Whether I understand the philosophy and the affiliation, the war pretty much tells me that all supply lines could get cut off at any time. I would rather have my dry goods in the closet than waiting for a delivery that might never come. Just because I understand what the fascist dictatorships are doing doesn’t make me immune to their actions.
I am mentioning all of this here because I feel this money hemorrhage exactly as I feel it for running the heater too much in the office. I don’t believe in wasting resources that should not be wasted. I live a lot closer to the Bone and my parties are not exorbitant at all. I am not moved by beautiful pictures and I am not jealous by Nature. In fact, when I see overt and pretentious displays of wealth, I am more disgusted than impressed. Peacocking is one of the most foolish things we can do in a world of 8 billion hysterical people. Demanding that the world stay at war with each other is in fact why this is the stupidest generation in the history of History. And even if that has been said too much, we can at least agree that we are the weirdest and greediest of all of our ancestors.
Ты думаешь , что ты умная но ты такая тупая, что заставляешь меня плакать.
You think you are smart but you are so stupid it makes me cry…
This is a quote from a play I wrote a decade and a half ago. That play was named ironically Надежда/Hope. And yet here we are working ourselves into a completely hopeless situation all based on exactly the same selfishness illustrated in the play.
Most probably my thoughts about the upcoming winter break and whether or not I do any writing next year have to do with getting my catalog together once and for all. It seems there has always been something to say and I’m not sure if it’s a need for validation that drives me to make sure it’s out. It might just be a gigantic “I told you so”. Or maybe it’s just a truly gigantic example of the truth being brushed under the rug and hidden away. I don’t know why I am so lucky to have had so much suppression. You’d think there would have been some kind of acknowledgment along the way. Not that I’m bitching about money or fame. I don’t really give a damn about them. I just wanted the wisdom shared which is exactly what got suppressed.
This is kind of a part of a conversation I had with my ex partner last night. She is determined that I need new clothing. I told her that the world ignores my work only to stare at my body. But I can’t get her to stare at my body because she can’t see past my clothes.
The ball game is tied in the top of the fourth inning. So far it’s a pitching door with the entire championship on the line in Houston.
Anyway, I have some cleaning up to do. I didn’t really get to do such a good job on Friday because by the time I actually got to the end of my day, I was at my limit of tolerance for pain. I’m not sure it’s so much better right now. Even the minimum walking around I did yesterday was a bit rough. I guess I don’t have much choice. I’m not interested in putting up a wealthy image but I don’t like looking like I can’t take care of myself. Appearances are worth something even if it’s just to stop people from giving you bloody suggestions or smiling at you in pity.
My plan right now is to just start putting the warm room in order. There really isn’t so much to do. This is not a show House but I think things should be at least we’re there supposed to be.
If it’s interesting, I really only ate once yesterday. Perhaps it could be considered something like an intermittent fasting day. There was about a 4-Hour window where I ate a lot of food. I ate a pretty big meal on Friday night as well. If you’re living a mostly stress-free life, if you don’t really have a lot of physical obligations and you don’t want to get in the habit of eating every time you’re bored, I think a schedule like this is pretty comfortable. You can eat a big meal, which is always pleasurable and then you can take your own sweet time digesting it.
I think that this thinking comes from the calorie density that comes along with a whole food vegan diet. Most factory foods or fat based diets lead people to need more meals. This diet of course is better for the economy because if the food you eat only keeps you satisfied for three or four hours, you have to spend more money on more food to keep yourself going. What I’m doing seems to keep me quite comfortable for even 12 hours at a time.
This again is only good if you are on limited exercise. If I eat like this and suddenly have a big movement day, I will go into a sugar low as I burn off what’s inside me. But like I said, If you just take it easy, I think this is a tremendous way to live.
I guess if we just got out of the war business, we could all calm down about our eating habits. That would probably go a long way to helping take the stress off the healthcare system and probably take a huge bite out of the obesity, addiction, mental health, diabetes and cancer epidemic we seem to have made for ourselves. Do we call this an epidemic or a pandemic?
It doesn’t matter. It’s not going to be on the table for a discussion this year. This year, it’s how many weapons we can give to Ukraine that matters. I hear that we are currently up to about a thousand Russian deaths a day and probably equally as many ukrainians. This is for those of you who like to keep score. It’s still 0-0 in Houston.
***
It’s 5:15 a.m. and I’ve done quite a bit to get the warm room looking orderly. I wouldn’t say it looks remarkably architectural digest like but it’s orderly. Kyle Schwarber put the Phillies on board in the top of the sixth but then several hits and an absolute bomb by Yordan Alvarez into the seats up above the batter’s eye, and absolutely no doubter that he stood and watched and this has the Astros up three to one. Dusty Baker is chewing his toothpick with great interest. He is looking at his first World series in 25 years of managing.
The guy who caught the ball is some rich guy who just happened to be wearing a Yordan Alvarez jersey. I say that he’s rich because that area above the batter’s I seems to have tables for the people sitting there to enjoy. I’m assuming they are special seats for sale at a premium price. I could look it up but it’s not really that important. I don’t know if he needs it or not but if the Astros go on to win this game, that ball might be worth a half million dollars to him. Sometimes investments pay off.
Christian Vasquez singled in another run. The Phillies are in a hole now down four to one.
I picked up a few links about the war that are probably worth sharing. I will defer to Sinad for the sarcasm and specific attention to movements on the map.
For a more political overview but still stilted towards the Ukrainian side, here is Denys Davydov’s offering.
Sinad is American for what it’s worth and Davydov is Ukrainian. There is one other map reader I have been following regularly who happens to be Russian. Artem Dikarev calls himself “The Russian Dude” and also makes enthusiastic anti-Russian war updates. He apparently has immigrated to Canada which explains his freedom of speech and enthusiasm for the project.
I’ve also been posting from UATV, another obviously pro Ukrainian propaganda site. This one unfortunately has first-hand accounts of more torture and abuse during Russian occupation.
I would happily label all of these as one-sided information and in another time or another place I might even be giving links to pro Russian propaganda. Unfortunately, I don’t believe in the Russian cause. I don’t believe in it from first hand observation of the effect of Russian imperialism or hegemony and I don’t believe they have a righteous fight in Ukraine.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not emotionally involved here except for self-preservation or fear of harm coming to people I’ve been living with for two decades. It’s just that I have seen what the effect of Russia’s heavy-handedness over the last 9 years has been. I’ve seen what it has done to the community I live in, to my own business and to the people I live with now. There is a particular attitude that people have grown into as a result of Russian coercion and fascism. None of it is beautiful to use a phrase common to Belarusians. None of it makes any sense in a nation that prides or at least prided itself on its peacefulness.
I’ve been here for 20 years and I’ve never spent a day here for political reasons. I did not join the better Russian government just like I did not leave the American government. I left the states after September 11th because I did not want to live in the States during the time of War. Also, my business was ruined by conservative heavy-handedness. I came here simply because people were kind and respectful as a way of life. It was a place I could live without fear. This also changed with the beginning of a war in 2014. If we are looking at the rise of fascism in the United States and the constant threat of violence and racial dissension based on social stratification, the same is here now. If I left the States during the time where I just did not want to live in fear every day, I now have exactly the same problems.
It is possible that I could have found some contract as a writer somewhere along the way if I hadn’t chosen to live here. I did not do this for political reasons, I did it because I was more comfortable living with polite and gentle people. I moved here because they treated me well when I was here. I assume this is much the same as African-American soldiers who chose to live in Europe after the war. Why go home to misery when they could stay and feel like people.
So now we are in the middle of an election where according to Rachel Maddow, we are again voting for the existence of voting. Whether or not the Democratic process is real or to what extent it is real is part of the equation unfortunately. That there is endless corruption in both parties is also clear. And that there is a complete lack of vested interest amongst Americans now due to all of the advantages big business has been given to create monopolies for themselves, all a handshake from the conservative so over the last 40 years, there has never been a time where a vote means less.
Yet, there is absolutely no future in allowing the ruling class to do what they want without any checks or balances. Diminished quality of life in terms of damage to habitat is already the norm and allowing the corporations to have even less stopping them from indulging themselves has no future for humanity whatsoever. Perhaps fighting to retain voting rights is simply a gesture and we’ve already gone too far and it’s already too corrupted. But letting it go either from fear as it is here or from simply being numb due to excesses of selfishness in the West, we are hastening the end of life on this planet. And the answer is going to be Swift and violent for a lot of people. They are simply going to kill people exactly like what we see in the war in Ukraine.
This is getting to the end of my third year of writing. The American elections are this week and these are the last two weeks I have planned for this year’s journal. I was supposed to be writing about food and perhaps I did. But once again, just like last year, human politics demand so much attention. It seems impossible for someone to pay attention to the positives of eating a more natural diet and the negatives of allowing the corporations to take care of us because the noise of the military industrial complexes is just too loud. They don’t allow any voices to be heard. They don’t allow anything to grow. They just want their money and power and obviously from the examples we can see, people are simply disposable and our lives absolutely uninteresting. Literally, we can make some money joining the machine or we can say positive things online or we are simply canceled and thrown away to become part of the massive landfill problem. We just become industrial waste.
I sincerely hope that the Democrats create a mandate in the American elections. They have a remarkably uphill fight and the results, even if successful, are just going to be attacked again and again. I also sincerely hope that the Russians decide to back down and go home. They won’t. Their economy is completely tied to selling and stealing the profits from natural resources. Their government does not run based on the success of their people and how they treat people in their unchallenged corruption is obvious. But unless freedom wins, unless people retain their right to live on this planet and are again given the right to live in some kind of sustainable and natural state, un coerced by fear and on troubled by slavery, there is no chance for survival on this planet.
I say we might as well vote. The results of not voting are right in front of our eyes. The effects of fascism are now everywhere. We might as well try. Let me rephrase that, we really should try.
***
Okay, it’s the top of the 9th here in Houston and Ryan Presley is on the mound. If the Astros can hold, these are the last three outs of the 2022 baseball season.
Was this a great season? It certainly had its moments and high points. I am not a fan of the commissioner of baseball or his rule changes. Well, next year they are going to outlaw the shift and I think this will put some offense back in the game. But it seems that even without steroids, the game of baseball as it is played on this level is much more than the original game and its dimensions intended. There are too many people throwing a hundred miles an hour and too many hitters who understand how to put the ball in the seats. We have evolved. Perhaps we have evolved past the parameters of this quaint little game. The commissioners fear about how slow the game is is unfortunately the least of our worries. I’m not sure people have the attention span for it anymore. Attendance proves that.
We have a hit and the great Bryce Harper is coming to that with a man on. He cannot tie the game with one swing of the back but there is no reason not to pitch to him. No, there wasn’t even enough time to get poetic about that. Harper pops out to left field on the first pitch. And now there’s only one out to go.
I didn’t buy the baseball package this year. I watched pirate broadcasts instead. Very often, I just looked at the highlights and read the box scores. I also don’t have the patience.
A foul fly ball to right and Carl Tucker makes the catch and it’s all over. The Houston Astros are the champions of baseball, Dusty Baker gets his ring as a manager, and the underdog Phillies get to go home and wonder what happened to them. All the rest of us get to say goodbye to this year. Nothing but the winter to look forward to. This was officially the end of the summer.
Hey, maybe the Giants will get Judge. He’s from the Bay Area. Maybe the Giants will award him a small South American country and half of Van Gogh’s catalog and hopefully he’ll stay healthy. And of course, maybe we will not have World War 3 and a nuclear exchange. There’s a lot of IFS. But if we can manage not to extinguish ourselves and take every living thing with us, there’s always next year. There’s always hope in the spring and it’s only a few months away.
***
Why am I vegan? I am vegan because I am human. Humans are not carnivores. This is a carnivore. Humans are strictly vegetarian. Well, if we had any common sense anyway…
Or maybe people just have no connection anymore between the food they eat and the effort it takes to make it. I didn’t grow all my own food this year but I tried. Next year I’ll do it again if all things are the same. Maybe it’s the connection that’s missing.
By the way, considering my one meal a day regimen, it seems eating really is a problem for most people. Mic the vegan has a few thoughts today about “intuitive eating“. This particular thought about intake comes from a world where we do not fight for our food or have a large percentage of the consuming population directly work for their own food agriculturally. It comes from the fact that we no longer eat seasonally or based upon availability and have this sort of universal diet augmented by additives to the factory foods we eat. Intuitive eating combined with a direct connection to Nature makes sense. Intuitive eating when connected to a world that wishes you to be as addicted as possible to consumerism is not in any way natural. Something to think about.
And finally, if you are looking at these words on a Sunday morning and have plenty of time to think about things, please think about letting me go. It’s for your own health, mental and physical as well as the mental and physical health of the entire planet. The only thing that is going to help us is common sense. It’s time to let your mind be free and to start thinking in practical terms again. All of these fun and games are going to be the end of us.
If any of the above arguments make sense to you, it means you truly understand the connection between human activity and global warming and therefore the meat industry and global warming. And if you’ve been listening to me, you might also see the connection between our cultural insanity and all of the above problems and the meat industry. In any case, you get what you pay for and the results ecologically are as seeable as anything else.
***
It’s about a quarter to 3:00 in the afternoon of a cold rainy day. I am sitting on the couch in the bakery next to my ex partner. We are eating apples and walnuts and salted peanuts and sitting in front of a seven log fire.
She has been mushrooming and has gathered a full basket of whites and Polish mushrooms. It is getting late in the season and the mushrooms are already showing signs of coming to the end of their cycle. I am a lot more of a mushroom expert now then I was just a few weeks ago. Now I am fast with a knife to clean them and then reasonably skilled about getting them on to the drying table before they have a chance to fall apart. I am still not a hunter and I would be surprised but please should I have the legs next year to go marching through the forest. But in any case, I feel very fat with mushrooms right now. My ex partner does as well.
A thought came into my mind as we were sitting in front of the fire. My ex partner was full of nervous energy. She just wanted to do things and wouldn’t slow down. She is so far beyond the pace of my normal life. Everything I do seems so slow by comparison. I have time to contemplate almost everything that goes past my face. I have no reason to ignore it. Even the slightest things become interesting in their own way.
But what occurred to me is how quickly she threw more logs into the fire. I understand that she doesn’t know my fireplaces as well as I do or what is needed to create heat. She was making hysterical decisions basically. Frankly, she was fussing so much and trying to do so much work. She was trying to do everything rather than just sit down and relax. She was afraid to relax. She was afraid to stop. Even Sundays, she’s too afraid to stop.
I also noticed that this was the truth generally for her lifestyle. She is so easy to throw money away. She puts her faith in her company to be there for her. She exists for that flow of money that comes in at regular intervals. She doesn’t care if she spends every money she makes or throws away money on things that are almost worthless to her life. Simply spending money for the sake of spending money. Simply doing the action in the hope of receiving some level of satisfaction from it. Just constantly feeding a hunger that never goes away.
Then I remembered something about my father. I remember visiting him after he moved to Seattle. He told me that he liked keeping his house cool. To him, the economics were only keeping the thermostat for the entire house at 68°. That’s an easy 20° for the Europeans. He used to say this without any pride or apology. He was simply pressing against the norm. Most people want 72°/22°.
Today I realized that this was a habit from his ancestry. There is a difference between living in the country and living in the city. In the country, in order to heat the house, it is directly connected to the work you do to bring Wood home. One way or another, what is needed is worked for directly. You could make the argument that the job he did for the corporation he worked for was paying him money which became equal to the commodity of wood. You could say that he was not even obligated for wood as anything more than a decorative object. He could pick up a cord as a throwaway but truly relied on electric heating. His house would be completely dysfunctional without the constant flow of electricity going through it.
My father liked living in a colder house and he liked pointing it out. I could suddenly see his father and his father before that and all of his father’s fathers staring down their wives angrily for using seven sticks of wood to make fire. I could hear them all fussing to slow down and let the thing do its job. You can’t have everything today. You can’t force nature. The logs are going to do what they are going to do and there’s nothing we can do but be happy and wait patiently. Our comfort is not the most important thing. Ours is just to be understanding that we are part of things and that these commodities we need must be within their portions. There’s no reason for a big party today. Today is just a normal day.
Don’t get me wrong, there was no anger in this. Just something to notice among all of the other things there was to notice. We had an argument about the relative necessity of this operation of hers or how much she needed to spend on it overall. It was almost a luxury item truly. It wasn’t even the sort of operation that had dangerous implications or even that she was in a great deal of danger before doing it.
We didn’t fight about this. She just mentioned it and I asked about it and she turned sheepish when telling me the details. I understood why she hadn’t had me in the loop the entire time. She knew I would shake my head at her decisions. It’s one of the reasons she has my ex partner and not my partner.
The only thing that I had to get involved in to the end was that the doctor had told her she was obligated to do 10,000 steps a day. She now had an app. The app would measure her steps based on her Geo position. We downloaded compasses for her trip to the forest because she was worried about it. When I mentioned that her phone GPS was independent of the internet, that word made her ears prick up. I guess it was mentioned in the app material or maybe the doctor had said this to her. It was nothing but a mystery word and now I was saying it too.
She was disappointed that she had been gone for 3 hours but had only taken 3,000 steps. It never came into her head that she had walked away from internet coverage. The app simply had a blank for that spot. I guess she never looked at the map. The actual mathematics of those 10,000 steps is really just to go somewhere and be moving for somewhere between an hour and 90 minutes a day. The exact same time I have always asked students to pay attention to English for homework. It’s about the same time you should put into playing a musical instrument if you’d like to be reasonably proficient at it. It’s the time that you should put into anything that you wish to get better at. It’s called practice and for humans, an hour to 90 minutes will pretty much do the job for you.
The thing is that this rationality was not as romantic as the 10,000 steps. The mathematics were simple. The GPS was telling her what her basic Pace was for walking around and according to the app, they assigned a certain stride length for her height. We figured out that she basically moves at about 4 km an hour. Her 10,000 steps worked out to about 7 km. There it was as clear as the sunset.
I mean, sometimes people will do things simply because their electronics tell them this. Other people might discover by doing things that they have a particular tolerance for how long they can do them. Some people never really pay attention to their own performance and do things intuitively. Of course this intuition business ends up as a failure if for any reason your motivation is not fully in place. No matter what, you have to want to. If you have your reservations, it is a waste of time.
The fire eventually died down and she packed up her things and went out to the bus stop to head back to town. She has a day off tomorrow but she’s not going to come up here. Just as she was leaving, Tanya called me and asked me if I needed another load of mushrooms. This hurt my ex partner. Her jealousy came up again. I think she’s more angry at her own jealousy than anything. All of this is below her. All of this is stupid village shit. She didn’t understand why I was still buying mushrooms. All I could say is that I lived here and I like having my shelves stocked.
They both had the same mushrooms but I think Tanya’s were the firmest and best looking mushrooms she has brought yet. She is back to complaining about her husband again. Actually, he is not her husband. He is her living friend and the entire Santa Barbara of her life is far more long reaching. Their moment of sweetness is over and they are back to screaming at each other again. I don’t doubt it. She was much quieter with me though. I guess I’m having an influence.
I took my ex partner’s advice. I don’t have any more hay so I just crumpled up some paper and put it in some iron pots and threw the mushrooms on top of it. I put three pots with paper full of mushrooms into the entrance of the fireplace that was still being heated by the embers. I know this is not going to be enough to do anything but in part a little smoky flavor. I will turn on the electric fan for a few more hours tonight and tomorrow. This electric fan is making for a bloody expensive month. I’m sure it’s worth it. You get used to the taste of really nice forest mushrooms. Maybe I’m putting too much money into it. This is my ex partner’s observation. Whether this is the pot calling the kettle black or her just trying to give as good as she gets is unclear. In any case, I’ll be in the office for a while tonight because it’ll be warm in there. Expensively warm but warm.
Right now the house is empty again. Even Lena called to find out the story. Her day will be on Tuesday. I think I’ll have some laundry by then. I could do it myself but I think it will require some money instead. I probably could do this by myself and I am also probably wasting resources. But my life feels better when Lena gets her cut. I also like what life feels like when Tanya gets hers. And I genuinely feel bad if my ex partner doesn’t get her attention.
That was another lesson my father taught me. It was probably the most important and simple lesson he ever gave me. He said to be nice to the women. There weren’t any more words necessary than that. He didn’t exactly tell me how to do it or when or even why. It was just good fatherly advice. It was good advice and at times like this where my life is slow enough to be able to pay attention to all the nuances, you really can see the difference. Being nice to women is a good philosophy to keep.
***
I think my biggest fear is that we really might not see the likes of him ever again. I am not a political Patriot. But I am a language teacher and at least I hope I am an intelligent person. I try to be at least. I practice it at the very least. It has been not just an awkward 6 years but an absolute face palming, morosely depressing 6 years. I mean, I like listening to the man’s talk. I like his ideology. I like what he talks about and I miss hearing how he talks. Certainly he is well rehearsed. I’ve heard the word smooth reported about him and his basketball game. I think honestly he was the most respected American politician and possibly the most respected American of his time. I feel it is a shame for those who allowed their politics to shoot him down. His politics or the color of his skin. That is probably the worst of it that he was robbed during his presidency.
Have not really done my job. This is not to say that my job was to get involved with the American elections and retool my algorithm to listen to a few people everyday. I just lived my life and worried about me. I was told by the state of Florida that they would not accept my vote last time. They found a reason to not allow me to do my citizens’ right of voting. They went out of their way to make it harder than it needed to be. They are a conservative state and they have never done anything but steal from me ever.
I’m also not really sure that anybody would be listening to me all. I may still have a passport but I definitely don’t live in the United States. I don’t work there every day, I don’t hang out with American people talking politics or trying to persuasively move my agenda within the boundaries of the USA. I don’t really have anything to do with the United States. They don’t support me in any way and frankly, I don’t really ask them to.
The thing is just in the words. I know that Barack Obama is not going to be working for us except as a speech maker. But I like his speeches and his words. His words are that we do our job and we pull together. He doesn’t sit here and point fingers and say people are cheating. He doesn’t incite violence and hate. He does not pursue a fascist agenda or speak in double talk. He just makes sense when he speaks. He is simply understandable.
I remember the night Hillary Clinton lost a bullshit election. It was a bullshit move by the Democratic party and they probably deserved what happened. But none of us deserved 4 years of Donald Trump. Only people absolutely so dim behind their eyes, so completely drugged out and desensitized, people who absolutely can be ruled like a bull with a ring through its nose thought that this man was their friend. In my life, I would never have imagined such a shameful display of an absolutely despicable degenerate of a man attempting to run the United States of America. I never could have even imagined a guy working for a terrorist government simply because they provided him with cocaine and cheap hookers. They gave him free money and he took it and said whatever they wanted him to say. And all the people around him nodded their heads in agreement and voted as a group. They just stole everything they could get their hands on and we couldn’t stop them. They cheated everybody out of everything including their votes and nobody could figure out how to stop them.
It wasn’t just stupid, it was organized cruelty. It wasn’t just cruelty, it was an abomination to the eyes. The entire job of trying to use a legal system that had already been bought and paid for to capture someone who was nothing more than a puppet for the corrupt regime did nothing but demonstrate impotence to stop him. It was all a joke.
Except that it wasn’t. There is something to the conservative rhetoric that speaks to people. They speak to people’s addictions. They speak to people’s misery. They teach people to continue the Christian ethic of looking down your nose until you feel you’re better than other people. They beg people to be degenerates. They push drugs and violence on non-white communities. They teach hate and War and killing as the answer to all things. They incite violence and hate. They are asking people to be fascists in their daily lives. They are Nazis just as much as the Russians are and just as much as any government office on the planet who gets their main paychecks from the oil business and the military industrial complex. Corruption rules the world and the power is corrupted endlessly.
So we are a couple of days away from the American midterm elections and Barack Obama is continuing on the campaign road looking for votes for blue candidates. Most probably, there is not one of them who could ever come close to Mr Obama’s style or intelligence. You can’t compete with someone who was basically babe Ruth or Barry Bonds at what he does. Not perfect. Not without flaws. Not without great gaping flaws especially when he had no ability to stop moves made by the military for the oil business. He was not our savior.
But you cannot say that because the corruption managed to touch him that the argument is wrong. You can’t say that because someone had a moment in their past that this disallows them from working for a better future. You cannot have a group of completely corrupt people sitting around and making moral judgments or telling people that they have the right to make moral judgments on others. You can’t sell hate instead of reasonable public policy. You cannot steal people’s right to speak their mind and to participate in society simply because of the color of their skin or because they just wish to play fair.
There is supposed to be a separation between church and state. You can’t bring Christian morality into the lawmaking process and say it belongs there. What we do with the public money is fix the problems with the infrastructure and allow people to do what they need to do to live their lives. The government is not supposed to be there to ruin people’s lives and break them down and take away their opportunities and force them to live in poverty or in violent situations. The job of the government is not to judge us or call us liars or cheaters. The job of a government is to wisely and sustainably make sure that public works projects get done. The job of the government is to make sure that we are all okay.
This is the way we are supposed to vote. We are supposed to vote for common sense and not flash. We are supposed to vote for people who we believe won’t steal the money. We have to vote for people who we believe will vote their conscience and to do everything possible for people to retain a sense of fairness and allow a vested interest in our communities.
We don’t need anyone else out there ruining other people or talking trash or calling people names or acting like a schoolyard bully. We don’t need people running the place with gibberish. We don’t need people displaying the mentality of seven and eight-year-old children. We do not need people telling us that they translate directly from God. We do not need people telling us who to hate and who the bad people are.
We don’t need good guys and bad guys. We need people. We need people who help keep our communities going. We need people that just do their job and don’t steal from us. We need people who actually care. And if we don’t vote correctly, we might never vote again.
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