Months of journeying that passed between the metaphorical back then and proverbial now, each deigning all the other grains of sand falling down inside the cracked hourglass of existence as somehow inferior, there is little cause for peace of mind. Shaving despite the obliged normalcy of pandemic masks, what’s the point? Mine is indentured servitude only to my flavor-savor, like an alien symbiote. Keep me defined and refined it screams, so that none may notice our inner or outer turmoil. For all the eyes not already distracted by my growing potbelly, as though any eyes would ever be on me. The lack of what passes for terrestrial logic here is how I know it’s an alien symbiote ala Venom and not a demonic symbiote ala Spawn. Of course, vanity is certainly a sin any demon would be well aware of, so perhaps I am more in the wrong than the guy in the mirror would have me believe. But then, why do we reference clean shaven as though dirty shaven were by contrast a thing? Our language was made redundant long before our societal pretenses for standards were. There actually is life outside the confines of entertainment or appeasement, whether appeasing our own egos or other egos overflowing with broken promises regardless.
For a voice from the crowd perspective, I’ve lived here for about 3 and a half years, but have been familiar with the region going much further back. It’s a small town, largely religious-minded and so largely conservative voters. But for whatever reasons it has an anti-establishment streak, with the infamous Cornbread Mafia starting here back in the 1970s. The irony is in how the issues prioritized by national-level politicians are not remotely relevant to what the people here seem to think and feel, yet they continue to vote for their own detriment. When the pandemic began for example, while mainstream pundits cast doubt on the virus even being a real thing, folks here were quick to take the matter seriously, because too many have already come to know how unreliable is our healthcare system generally and were thus unwilling to take chances. Last spring the mayor imposed restrictions on schools early on, the post office setup taped floors to show suggested distancing, playgrounds were rendered off-limits, etc. The two big grocery stores showed who their customers were, with the Save-a-lot back in March putting up plastic dividers in front of the cashiers and sanitation booths throughout, while the IGA store largely stayed maskless until just before the holidays, workers and customers giving side-eye to anyone wearing a mask inside. Only after neighbors in the strip mall housing the IGA shut down over so many hospitalized with infections did they give their circumstances a second thought. There is still a swathe of the public here who are too casual about when and where they will mask up, however. The sorts of people who don’t actually follow any news outlet, but mistake the reactions to the news found on Facebook for news itself. Usually, fundamental extremists of any religion share the idea that travesty occurs as punishment, like masses of people dicked by the gods for not being devout enough in favoring the marketing.
Maybe the winter severity of recent days across the country happened to keep self-serving assholes homebound, when the greater majority would much rather continue exempting themselves from the common sense of pandemic-era protocols. Why does pandemic-aware California have comparable death-rates to pandemic-denying Florida? Because despite state or federal mandates, that many people have been breaking the guidelines set in place to keep everyone alive. That many people prioritize immediate gratification of wish-fulfillment, oblivious to how actions weirdly possess consequences.
I myself am a round-the-clock caregiver, no days or nights off and almost 4 years now since I last had a chance to sleep more than 2 or 3 hours at once. Prior to this I was the high school dropout who managed to avoid ever falling into debt. I have been homeless before, more often than not, but always working homeless. The last time I voted was for Perot in ’96, attracted by his call to cripple the IRS and his running mate being a retired professor of philosophy- a tremendous alternative to careerist politicians or businesspersons or retired military. After the fact I learned of the role Perot played in the Iran-Contra scandal, and I felt burned enough to never again take any politician on their word. Socially, everyone encourages each other to view the larger half of the population who refrain from voting as being idiots, but I believe a substantial portion of them, unlike registered voters, can remember 15 minutes ago. I obsess over ideology, and the 367k+ words at my website are neither buying or selling anything, as that is clearly no way to go about living any sort of life. Not a popular viewpoint, obviously. Most if not all peoples in the USA today would have no earthly clue how to even begin to go about living a life free of consumer culture. I’ve personally no time for adults who can rationalize spending any time playing video games or following sports as though lives depended on it. People old enough to be parents or grandparents who have yet to outgrow superheroes, or any other fantasy contributing absolutely nothing to their actual well-being or livelihoods. Why are there so many problems in western society? Because that many people are prioritizing their own entertainment above all else. Like children arguing over the TV remote while the house burns.
Contrary to how anybody feels about it, fascism is not obstruction from getting what you want, like not being indulged or catered to. Fascism is obstruction from getting what you need. And in this dark era it’s becoming really fucking difficult to find anyone in this country who can differentiate the two. The modern definition for inclusiveness would seem to be exemptions and exceptions included automatically for anything which might restrict or confine the ego. Empowerment somehow equates with a get out of jail free card against personal responsibility, consistency and fidelity. Reconciliation is now interpreted not as a call for some sacrifice or contrition from the person or party urging forgiveness, but a free pass for the same conduct causing whichever conflicts to continue unabridged and undeterred.
It has been noted that the last time there was a surge in conservative voters for national elections was when the Republican party accepted the Dixiecrats into their fold with open arms, Dixiecrats being southern Democrats who took personal offense to the notion of integration and equalized access to education. With every national-level election in the decades since, whenever there is an uptick in votes, they tend to be for Democrat candidates. Still, Republican and Democrat voters combined never really average more than half the total population. Contrary to rubbish such as this article from John Ziegler, Republicans failing to pitch racism, sexism or homophobia as cool are not being suppressed or oppressed. People for the most part actively frown upon the rights of others when those rights mean said people might no longer wield the upper hand in whichever social situations, but social situations obviously grow all the more destabilized the more blunt anybody is about maintaining pretenses of supremacy. Capitalism is the apex of self-serving ideologies to extents of leaving all other political persuasions and religious idioms at the door. Wealth is never patriotic or spiritual. This is fundamentally what the Republican party is proactive about, self-centeredness maintaining pretenses of supremacy at cost to others, as its platform consists of nothing but suppressing/oppressing the verifiable rights of whichever subsets of the population who happen to walk and talk out of company line. Not to imply the Democrat party is any different, as Pelosi herself plainly stated before that all politicians are Capitalists. The Democrats are just more obsessed in recent decades with sparing resources not for bettering the world but bettering their profiles, for costuming to give that impression, and should the world continue to grow worse then the other guys are always to blame. Anyone not sharing in the brand loyalty is very much the outsider somehow forgoing their own civil or basic human rights, whether the brand is red or blue. The old argument of “both sides” is as incomplete as any other variety of whataboutism, often employed by knee-jerk reactionaries considering themselves open-minded, but in reality both parties today are generous with finding exceptions to integrating all peoples, unless it’s the matter of integrating all peoples to buy into the favored branding. Yes, it was a concerted Republican effort which made it possible for the state of Texas to privatize its entire power grid, but this was prevented by no Democrat effort of the last 2 or 3 decades since the transition.
As much as Trump deserves to be punched out like any other dime a dozen fascist, the same Democrats who #resisted in ever doing so these last few years helped put on the pantomime of the impeachment, performance art for the world stage where messaging was relayed to the American public loud and clear that selfishness gets no accountability in proper society. The previous Secretary of Education, living and ideally dying for privatization of schools contrary to what her post was designed for, is currently being protected by Biden from multiple lawsuits with the same logic as how Biden does nothing to impair further privatization of the power-grid. The only difference of opinion between the two parties is over who gets to cash the checks. Failure to find logic in the prejudices of conservatism doesn’t mean Republicans are being demeaned, and failure to find logic in the biases of the competing brand doesn’t mean detractors are necessarily sexist or racist or homophobic. Observing how Neera Tanden is a psychotic drunk has absolutely nothing to do with her being female, although the persons imploring that defensive argument do seem to be suggesting that a singular attribute such as ethnicity or sexual orientation or gender is all that a person might be, fully defining who a person is and what they are on about, absolutely projecting what they themselves claim to be against. If we are more than our singular attributes of ethnicity or sexual orientation or gender, and while persons today rarely are they certainly do have the potential, then a functioning democratic society must accept the reality that criticism as well might pertain to anything other than ethnicity or sexual orientation or gender. If they are not to be regarded as hindrances because we’ve no say in the matter, then as we have no say in the matter how can they be regarded as strengths? How is that any different from national pride, individually taking credit for achievements one had nothing to do with?
Identity is no trivial concern, and discerning/developing our own is vital, not so that we can require arrogant demands for how the rest of the world should address us, but as a vantage point so that we as individuals might know how to address the world at large. In that spirit, might a better marker for identity be that which sets us apart as individuals, rather than whatever brands, flags or attributes we shelter underneath or align with or stand opposed to? Because that would be true equality, but seemingly everyone regardless of political or religious aspirations would prefer to stand in whichever line than be measured by their own individual merits or mettle or the lacking thereof. Most will read this and make the fast presumption that my blanket refusal to agree with a thing on face value somehow translates to my being no more logical than its most lethal threat. I am not disagreeing with a thing on face value either. I’m just experienced enough in my world-weary daze to understand how truth possesses a function more important than mere flattery, and that subjectivity changes as often as moods or trends. Clothes do not make the man, they conceal him. It’s what we do that matters, not what we like or dislike.
The shallowness is what their competing party obsesses over, but too often is it used by liberals for deflecting in-house objections no matter how constructive. The root of their own marketing is to obscure the fact they are equally as insubstantial as their competition across the aisle, with all the depth of predictable ornamentation. All those who claim to find any definable partisanship to differentiate between the two parties, finding anything in their words or actions other than self-idolatry and self-enrichment at grave expense to everything off-brand, have only found another fantasy to hide within. Fantasies do not solve problems.
In a working system, third parties would hold appeal in today’s climate for quite a few persons around the Bible Belt and beyond, but as with third parties generally, the system quite purposefully deplatforms them, at least until more voters can magically become aware of the faults of their own preferred team colors enough to violently overthrow the government relying on suppression and oppression. Currently, some conservatives wish to leave the Republican party because too much Trump is leaving them with sloppy seconds, while others wish to leave over fellow conservatives not sucking his prick fervently enough. That is the fullest extent of the political divide, no ideology with anymore depth than immediate gratification at cost to the abounding universe. But that’s the ongoing dilemma to the American wet-dream, ultimately proving itself as persons made susceptible to marketing, fanatically fantastical escapism aplenty for the appealing ease to hide collective shame and desires and prejudices behind labels or flags or any distraction we can muster from nothing. Nauseatingly, it has become a common point of angst for millennials of whichever political persuasion shocking to their parents, to gripe how they innocently did all that was requested of them, playing by the rules of the system and scratching off items from the to-do bucket list of societal norms, yet have not had their wishes meet with fulfillment. Mountains of student debts barring home ownership, etc. Not one voice from that crowd of heliocentric derivatives realizing how any error in judgement hangs on their own shoulders, for being stupid enough to give any credence to marketing, much less gifting absolute susceptibility and subservience to branding originated and perpetuated by yet bigger egos who history shows time and again were never of them, by them or for them.
The USA has no culture, only competing brands. And there is no society where everybody is egocentric, just 330 million voices each shouting to have its will be done by all the others.
Incestuous pocket dimensions are unnecessary when we have the universe before us, and I know what comes next has nothing to do with how special we take ourselves for being, as the only thing which needs to hurt is ego’s prideful nature. No matter who you are, you will be forgotten. People refusing pandemic masks intended to serve matters greater than their own self-perception, while hiding behind their avatars and proxies, are so forgettable. People choosing crowds to get lost in fare no better, screaming for concentric unanimity as they are wont to do. All view themselves as the hero of the story, but you cannot be a party to any of it while also being a good person. Buying the taglines of any cultural or societal division no matter its impressions of functionality or benevolence is confessing you’ve a void to be filled. It’s admitting that you and your incompleteness are not looking to save anybody, but rather waiting to be saved yourself. Historically, neither soldiers or slaves the world over sacrifice of themselves for the greater whole, not when the comfort of their masters goes unmatched. Here and now in the USA no ego advances above the rest, without sacrifices by the rest. If your own time, energy and resources do not belong to the greater whole, human civilization or the universe or however you care to define a construct which omits nobody, then they are claimed by someone dramatically lesser than. Maintaining false pretenses of supremacy amidst the crowded grains of sand falling down inside this cracked hourglass that is existence.