Tag: Mitch McConnell

As Is by Mike Gold – 9-11 Part Two

After two decades, the 9-11 terrorists finally cemented their victory. They did so 366 days ago this very day

The victory has been the result of the chain reaction they must have hoped for in 2001: that by mounting attacks from Boston on New York and Washington, slamming into the Pentagon building and taking down our nation’s greatest warehouse of capitalism, we might unite for a few minutes but overall but our fear and the distrust inherent within a mongrel nation quickly would vomit down upon us and we Americans would turn on each other just as we always do.

That’s the textbook definition of terrorism; that’s why terrorism is an effective course of action for those willing to play the long game.

Steve Bannon © Bill Sienkiewicz.

The time was perfect for The Impossible Pussy, Donald J. Trump, and his criminally paranoid minions of White Supremacists to try to take over the nation. I don’t think they could have gotten as far as they have – their efforts remain a work in progress – if not for Osama bin Laden, the heart and soul of the contemporary Republican Party.

Critically, this White Supremacist Republican takeover of the United States of America by any means necessary (it’s not a coup as it’s hardly been bloodless, and only some White Supremacists think it has been bloodless) is indeed just the beginning. They stand every chance of succeeding. A handful of White Christian Republican far right-wing monsters and perverts can deny the people their vote or can overturn that vote at will. That, my friends, is a dictatorship.

You may think comparing the American White Right to Hitler is a cheap shot; it is not. Read some history. Not FoxOneAmericaBannon history where teaching the lessons of slavery might bruise the fragile feelings of some neurotic Youth Corps-raised White children and therefore must not be taught, but the real thing. The American White Republican Right is desperately and militantly trying to fulfill Adolf Hitler’s dream – no matter how many White American soldiers and sailors died in the fight to stop the fascist dictator. And, today, the American White Right Republicans have managed to label “anti-fascists” as our great evil.

These people know better. In their initial response to the first assault on our nation back on January 6 2021, the actions and inactions of Donald J. Trump and his White Supremacist Republican sycophants were condemned by such stalwart Republican masters as Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Mike Pence, Lindsey Graham, and Nikki Haley. Since then, those comments have been sent to the Star Trek mirror universe. Oh, no. McConnell, McCarthy, Pence, Graham and Haley never said anything bad about Trump. That would be heretical. Trump is god; what he does is by definition for the greater good of Real America… the White Christian Republican America.

The present Republican party is the party of bigotry, hatred, and treason. Their masters are McConnell, McCarthy, Pence, Graham, Haley and Trump. We better obey the All-Mighty Trump if we want to breathe right.

Today is the 366th day of the Second American Civil War. It did not start pretty; it will not end pretty… if it ends at all. I wouldn’t bet against the United States of America not being around when and if it’s over. It won’t be a north vs. south thing, it won’t be a state-by-state thing, it will be a city-state operation where those areas dominated by people who are not White Christian Republican Supremacists will replace our “blue” states, leaving the vast dry oceans of American hatred to be our “red” states. You’ll be able to tell where you are by the number of masks worn on the streets, the availability of women’s health services, the number of non-Christian houses of worship, a general acknowledgement of deductive reasoning and the respect for the principles that were the firmament of that great nation, that Camelot-like place on hill that we used to call the United States of America.

You may have a different opinion… but you would be wrong.

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind #112: My Slight Change In Plans

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind #112: My Slight Change In Plans

There may come a day I will dance on your grave / If unable to dance I will crawl across it / Unable to dance I will crawl / Yeah, unable to dance I will crawl – “Hell In A Bucket” written by John Barlow, 1982.

As we have approached election day – both presidential and “off-year” – for the past 48 years I have been writing about why it’s important to vote. I have managed to squeeze in this biannual sermon no matter where my words were being published. I have even gotten away with it at DC Comics, as well as on the air whenever somebody was silly enough to stick a microphone near my lips.

This time I’m doing the same, but I’m tweaking my usual message a little bit. This year people are particularly pissed, paranoid and peaky – even more so than usual, and for good reason.

Machiavellian Mitch “Moscow” McConnell has stacked the Supreme Court with a gaggle of far right-wing gangsters who have no regard for the words in the United States Constitution and the principles that make America unique. The chances of getting a fair count next week are event smaller than they were four years ago, when a minority of voters overruled the majority and shoved an unqualified, obnoxious Mussolini wannabe down our throats. Together, the two managed to nearly destroy the America we were taught about in school… while nearly destroying the schools themselves.

They haven’t finished the job, but there is still time to stop them. We’ve got exactly five days.

People are so upset that upwards of 80 million have voted already, many waiting in line between two and ten hours or more to do so. That is more than the total number of votes cast when I started this braying back in 1972.

Not all these people are voting against the fascist takeover – some are right-wing and/or religious bigots who conflate Donald J. Trump with Jesus H. Christ. It has been my impression that neither Trump nor McConnell actually speak for Christ, but I’ll leave that to those who care. Their führer has been encouraging them to wait and vote in person on election day, so that his numbers at the time of poll closing will be at their best, relatively speaking, and then he can declare victory, even if it’s untrue.

The fact is, by the time most of us who follow this sort of thing go to bed next Wednesday morning, we are quite likely to be lacking an informed, educated guess as to the winners. We probably won’t have to wait as long as we did in 2000, but we might if the Republican zealots can once again throw this to the Supreme Court.

That, of course, will be a horror show, one that will piss off millions of people no matter how the ruling(s) go. And by “piss off,” I mean “Katie bar the door.” Once again, gun sales are up – and do not infer that these increased sales are to Trump enthusiasts such as the Proud Boys and Boogaloo Marching Chowderhead Societies.

Way back in paragraph two I said I was tweaking my message a bit. Well, a promise is a promise.

In my previous pleas I said that whereas I had (usually obvious) preferences, you should vote either way. I still believe that is the proper thing to do… but “proper” isn’t the same as “appropriate.”

Trump, McConnell and Company have gone to great lengths to put their truly racist and bigoted programs into effect. I won’t bother to enumerate as the list is greater than our bandwidth and, besides, if you’ve read this far you already have made up your mind about all that. You might want to rid this nation of Latinos, Muslims, LGBTQ Americans, abortion, young Blacks who do not know their place, health care, public schools, reasonable prices for life-saving prescription drugs, for-profit prisons, lower taxes for the bottom 99% of Americans, and all this talk about global warming. Your having such a desire is your prerogative. I’m not in favor of hiring brain police; you believe in what you want.

Just don’t be surprised, shocked or offended if the sane majority tends to consider you a racist, a bigot, a sexist, a science-denier, et al… because that’s what you’re voting for.

That is what you are.

Have a happy election day. Bring a book, and remember: it is illegal for anybody, for any reason, to attempt to intimidate or force you out of voting.

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #068: History Looks Forward

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #068: History Looks Forward

I blow through here / The music goes ’round and around / Whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho / And it comes out here • Red Hodgson. 1935

The adage “history is written by the victors” is attributed to Winston Churchill, although there is no evidence he ever said or wrote that. Perhaps the more appropriate axiom is “History is bunk,” uttered by Thomas Edison in a 1916 Chicago Tribune interview. A loathsome man and a first-class bigot, Edison said:

“… what do I care about Napoleon? What do we care about what they did 500 or 1,000 years ago? I don’t know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across and I don’t care. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s dam is the history we make today.”

We’ve always been surrounded by bunk. I’m a history buff, but I’m also a science-fiction fan and, often, it is hard to tell the difference. The problem is, today’s omnipresent instant communications means these days bullshit travels at the speed of light. But the yin to that yang is that the victors no longer have an exclusive on history-writing, no matter who first said history was controlled by the winners. By the way, to my research, that was India freedom fighter Jawaharlal Nehru.

We have cameras on our cellphones that record on-the-street reality. We have podcasts and blogs. We have much, much greater access to documentaries and to historical records. Of course, the problem remains discerning the truth from the bullshit while divining the trajectory of everybody’s point of view. This is nothing new, but if you’re good at using search engines, you have enough patience and determination and a hankering for facts you will probably get closer to the truth now than ever before.

Which brings us to Donald J. Trump. Continue reading “Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #068: History Looks Forward”

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #062: A Priest, a Rabbi and a Minister…

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #062: A Priest, a Rabbi and a Minister…

This week’s off-off year election continues the trend that started a couple minutes after it became clear that the Electoral College was going to appoint the Great Orange Liar to the presidency. This quaint little anti-democratic system of ours has been kept in place for the past 154 years because some of the people who live in the Confederate States think they might have a shot at bringing back slavery, this time confiscating Hispanic and Muslim lives to fight it out with the Africans for the last bit of stale, moldy bread that once was America.

But it appears the worm might be turning, at least just a bit. 154 years ago, Virginia was home to the Confederacy’s seat of power. This week Virginia became as blue a state as Massachusetts with the governor’s mansion, the state House of Delegates and the state Senate all in the hands of the demon Democrats… which the Trumpublicans in both America and in Russia have defined as a bunch of commies. Both of their Senators are Democrats, as are seven of their 11 Congresspeople. Virginia is so blue now that even dogs can see it shine. Continue reading “Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #062: A Priest, a Rabbi and a Minister…”

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #056: Counting Noses.

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #056: Counting Noses.

Willie Sutton

In case you’re thinking about a career in politics – and if so, there might be something seriously wrong with you – here’s the most important skill you will need to perfect. You will need to know how to count noses.

We have exactly two political parties. There is nothing in the Constitution about political parties, and therefore there is nothing in our establishing document limiting us to two. From time to time a new party starts up and takes its best shot but they just wind up splitting the vote. By way of example, if a person with ideals that tend to appeal to Democrats runs for president, it is possible that the newbie will strip away enough Democratic votes to throw the election to the Republicans, or vice versa. Continue reading “Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #056: Counting Noses.”