Tag: Republican Party

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind  #108: What The Hell?

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind #108: What The Hell?

He is the president but wants to be the king / Know what I like about the guy? Not a goddamn thing / I want to know, how can four years seem so long? / Lord have mercy, what the hell is going on? — What The Hell?, written by Elvin Bishop, 2020

It’s not Trump. History tells us most dictators and despots are deposed after a while, one way or another. Mental and emotional basket cases in major positions of power such as our president have been a dime a dozen. Unfortunately, they’re like Kleenex. Pull one out, the next one pops up immediately.

This is because a certain percentage of our population is weak and incapable or unwilling to think for themselves. They possess a powerful need to feel superior to others, so they buy into a system of venomous bigotry that marginalizes and sub-humanizes various groups of people they deem inferior because they do not possess the same skin color, religious philosophies, sexual orientation, gender and/or ethnicity as “real Americans.”

I used to think humans were basically good. Sure, we’ve all got our foibles, and there are a small handful of true deviants out there that require observation, but overall I’ve been pro-humanity. I stuck to this for two-thirds of a century. Silly me. I have been the great native naïvitist.

Then, about 63,000,000 Americans voted for Trump. “Say what?” I said. It doesn’t matter that Clinton received three million more votes than Trump. America is not and never has been a democracy. We are a republic and republics can be manipulated quite easily. The proof is in the White House right now. The proof is at the Trump rallies, the Republican QAnon fanatics running for office, the Bugaloos and their fellow agent provocateurs, and on the Supreme Court — the “highest” court in the land even now, 120 years after the Court stopped serving itself cocaine wine.

The fact is, Donald J. Trump could be shot dead at high noon on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue (instead of the other way around, which, you will recall, Trump said he could do without suffering any consequence) and we would still be left with those 63,000,000 paranoid goose-stepping hating cowards marching around this nation supporting the murder of Black people by police, the religious totalitarians who believe their so-called values and only their so-called values are kosher, the environment is doing swell, the Covid virus is a Democratic Party hoax, the liberals are going to confiscate your guns, and the people who think everybody on welfare are thieves and people not wealthy enough to afford health care deserve to die.

Yeah. Herd mentality, indeed.

The America we were taught to love and respect in school and in our houses of worship and on television barely existed on its best day. That’s what an experiment in progress is all about. It’s time to put the lie to that one. We’ve had our moments, but today America exists only as a fool’s paradise.

Watch the next five weeks as what’s left of the Republican Party lies, cheats and steals its way to cementing their dictatorship. One nation, by the people, for the wealthy, one nation under Trump and his cackling puppeteers.

I’ll vote because I haven’t missed an election yet. It’s a habit. Voting used to be an act of optimism but, today, voting is an act of rebellion. Maybe some good will come out of it; clearly, it’s worth the shot. It might be our next-to-last bullet in the chamber before that second Civil War starts.

So. Riddle me this. Who was worse, Hitler or Trump?

That one is easy. When the chips were down, at least Hitler had the decency to commit suicide.

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind #096: The Great AMERICAN Virus

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind #096: The Great AMERICAN Virus

We live in a political world / In the cities of lonesome fear / Little by little / You turn in the middle / But you’re never sure why you’re here — Bob Dylan, “Political World,” 1989.

I am about to propose a hypothetical. If you are the least bit uncertain about the definition of that word, or you are associated with the Department of Homeland Security or any official law enforcement agency, or if you are a knee-jerk right-winger who believes in magical thinking and that “Black Lives Matter” means you are in greater danger now than you were before police were called out for their unchallenged murder of Black people, please use this convenient link so you know what I mean by “hypothetical.”

O.K. And now for my hypothetical.

Let’s say a lone gunperson assassinates this president. Shoots him dead. I mean, red blood gushing from orange skin with a chunk of dyed-blonde hair flying into Mike Pence’s lap dead. Hypothetical, remember? The gunperson is arrested and stands trial for first-degree murder, as well as whatever other charges that give Attorney General Barr an erection.

The Accused enters a plea of self-defense.

I think that might work. There’s a logical case that can be made for self-defense. Now, I told you this is a hypothetical argument, and if you think my scenario is a good idea, I’ll add that despite the worthiness of that plea it will remain quite likely that the Accused will still get the Needle, if not the firing squad at dawn. But the self-defense argument, if made with precise, calm logic, is understandable. Continue reading “Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind #096: The Great AMERICAN Virus”

Weird Scenes Inside The Good Mind 066: None Dare Call It Reason

Weird Scenes Inside The Good Mind 066: None Dare Call It Reason

Here’s a sequence of letters I never thought would flow from my fingertips: I miss the Republican Party.

Two-party systems suck. We do not live in a binary world. There are no “both sides of the issue,” there is a myriad of sides. There is a right and there is a wrong, but only by comparison. In other words, Ayn Rand was a purveyor of sociological science fantasy.

Of course, there is something worse than a two-party system. When one of those parties is nothing to write home about and the other one is brain dead (a popular term this week), and the two parties we’re stuck with rigged the system so that there can not be any more parties, what we are left with is America 2019.

It wasn’t always like this. There was a time, 111 years ago, when the Republicans were, by and large, the progressives in Washington. This ended when Teddy Roosevelt decided not to run for reelection in 1908. His chosen successor, William H. Taft, was the dude who pulled the party of Lincoln to the right. Appalled by this, Teddy, who did not speak quietly, challenged Taft in 1912. By then, Taft and his cronies had instituted a massive patronage system that prevented any outlier from having a chance. In his typical fashion, TR started his own party. A “third” party. Continue reading “Weird Scenes Inside The Good Mind 066: None Dare Call It Reason”

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #063: Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #063: Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss

I’ll move myself and my family aside / If we happen to be left half alive / I’ll get all my papers and smile at the sky / For I know that the hypnotized never lie / DO YA? – Pete Townshend, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”

Why are we doing this? Well, I believe there is one very good reason.

The impeachment process formally started yesterday. Over the next couple weeks, a slew of highly respectable and well-credentialed witnesses will put their life savings, their careers and their family’s safety on the line in the esteemed names of truth and patriotism. The professional ass-lickers will call them a bunch of names and give shade to snark. Um tut sut.

When all is said and done, what will happen next will be what we all knew would happen. The House, under near-exclusive party line votes, will vote to impeach the traitor in the White House. Then the Senate, under near-exclusive party line votes, will vote to acquit. There’s no “vote to exonerate” option, so nobody on either side will get to score a rhetorical victory – although, unfortunately, that won’t stop anyone from proselytizing. Continue reading “Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #063: Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss”

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #058: The Man Who Destroyed Time

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #058: The Man Who Destroyed Time

“It starts when you’re always afraid.” – Stephen Stills, For What It’s Worth

At first, I thought it was just another sign of senility. You gotta expect that, I guess. Then, I thought I was having one of those LSD flashbacks I was promised a half-century ago. I briefly considered the possibility I slipped through a hole in the time-space continuum, but, damn, no such luck. I had to face the truth.

Donald J. Trump destroyed my sense of time.

And I am not alone. Not by any means. I might even be in the majority; that’s a unique experience for me. Certainly, you’ve noticed this yourself. If you watch any of the talking heads panel shows, you’ve heard others bitch about this. You’ll hear of something Trump did yesterday – yesterday! – and you’ll say to yourself “Oh, yeah. Damn. I thought that happened a couple weeks ago!”

It’s not disconcerting the first time, but after a while (obviously, sooner than you think) you begin to think of senility, flashbacks – if you’re a geriatric hippie – and that time warp thing. Once to accept the truth, you just shake your head, shrug your shoulders, and wonder if you can hold on until this particular Joker is gone. Even if you’re part of the 55% of Americans who disapprove of him, you’ve got to face this important fact:

Donald J. Trump broke time. Continue reading “Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #058: The Man Who Destroyed Time”

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #047: “The Blood of Patriots & Tyrants”

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #047: “The Blood of Patriots & Tyrants”

What is tyranny?

As usual, the answer to that is depends upon whose ox is being gored. That is one of the central realities of all existence: we care more if what’s going on has a negative impact upon us directly, or at least upon our sensibilities.

Were I a Muslim, a Puerto Rican, a Somalian, an African-American, a Palestinian, a woman of independent thought, an educated person who knows the differences between “progressive,” “liberal,” “Democratic Party,” “socialist,” and “communist,” or a person who believes that the people who run Fox News or the One America News Network are a gaggle of liars, Supremacists and fascists (look up the word before you take offense – and, then, go ahead and take offense anyway), I consider the present-day “Republican” party and its petty, know-nothing lying self-obsessed leader to be tyrants. Continue reading “Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #047: “The Blood of Patriots & Tyrants””

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #046: Racism Is The New Orange

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #046: Racism Is The New Orange

Perhaps you recall way back last Sunday when the most notorious bigot of the 21st Century told four members of the House of Representatives to go back where they came from, where they should be trying to fix those shithole countries (to borrow a phrase he applied to such lands eighteen months ago) instead of annoying him.

The optics aren’t good here, but let’s face it: we are a nation that is completely polarized. This president really could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue near his tacky Trump Tower #1 and not lose support from his base – which is somewhere between one third and two-firths of the American electorate. He could then try to have sex with the bullet hole (to borrow a concept from my old pal and editor Paul Krassner) and, even if he couldn’t get “it” up his base will gladly hold it for him. Continue reading “Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #046: Racism Is The New Orange”