Yes, funny/not funny how un-Xian the Xian pro-theocracy party is. Then again, I'm on record that the religion is essentially anti-progress by its own terms -- I'm thinking (and I use the term loosely) of original sin; not being an asshole is pretty much to get one into heaven so doing good while alive isn't too important. Yes, I know; not all denominations, just the politically-controlling ones.
With that is the irony that their god was born as essentially an illegal immigrant. Turned away from where they wanted to stay, not shipped back to their home nation.
Should I note that a lot of DC's problems here would be much more easily addressable were it a state.
Yup. Reagan. A B-list actor and Big Business spokesmodel bringing wannabe fascists to Washington, who started the transition from "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" to, eventually, "suckers and losers".
I think you’re being a little too morbid, Roy lmao. But the concept of things passing out of living memory is interesting. Americans in general don’t know history and what little they do know they don’t fully understand. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that world-wide fascism is on the rise immediately following the passing of those who remember actual Nazism.
And I think it is clearly the conservative scheme to turn back the clock so as to normalize the loss of privacy rights and autonomy for a new generation. This plan can work on various levels: as more and more people pass away who remember what life was like before Reagan, a whole host of authoritarian policies become “just the way things are.” This is also true of the economics of late capitalism: my late father, a UAW union man, worked on the assembly line at the GM plant on the Hudson River just north of NYC, and his income supported us. Impossible today.
So "Ruth and Ronald" are refugees from Venezuela and in all probability they are coming here because their economy is a shambles. Their economy is an shambles because we have spent more than a decade trying to destroy it and fomenting coups and stealing their stuff. And in all probability the best place for them to come is here. The actual world is beyond surreal.
Jul 28, 2022·edited Jul 28, 2022Liked by Roy Edroso
That's some powerful good writing boss. Edgy, flip yet heartfelt and compassionate. Thanks!
I admit the only way that I made it through catechism was the fact that I desperately wanted to spend time with a beautiful young lady named Linda in my class who made me just ache. Anyway though, I never missed classes and I think I got the gist of it. One thing I do remember is all the good guys were some kind of refugee and all the bad guys
were people who persecuted said refugees. It's not like encoded or anything.
Linda and I went to high school together. One night after band concert in the fall of my senior year I told her I was crazy about her. Always had been. Always would be. She kissed me( slow- that's always best) and said something to let me down easy. I don't remember what.
This is a beautiful essay, sir — it breaks my heart to realize how small are the resources available to those who reach out to help, ease suffering, live according to their own codes of mercy & humanity... and how the war-chests & loot bags of those who lust for conquest & control spill over.
Fuck prosperity gospel & its evil political twin, neoliberalism.
Oh, and gattdamm son — thanks for the rec for "Heart of Glass." Do you think it's on Kanopy?
Very well said. Another piquant irony, if that even does it justice, is that the most anti-American, hate-filled, selfish, hypocritical "christian" sunzabitches are the ones most likely to call themselves "patriots." Now there's a word we really shouldn't have allowed them to steal from us.
Sending the immigrants to D.C. is also the same tactic used by Belarus on the Polish border. Hateful fascists come to the same conclusions all over the world. They do not want to solve a problem or help people. Their actions under the pretense of helping others to understand the problem create more problems. They use resources to instigate reactions they believe are just natural. Everybody is a mean bastard and lacks compassion when confronted with having to do something to help people in need.
Try telling right-wingers in the US they behave like authoritarians and the old Communist Party. They somehow fail to see that locking kids up in cages at the US border has anything in common with historically similar events in other places.
Jul 28, 2022·edited Jul 28, 2022Liked by Roy Edroso
'It’s a prime example of a key conservative strategy at work — aggressively fucking up government, then going 'see, government can’t do anything right.'''
Big* donation from me to any Democrat running for office who's willing to say this in public. Or any general critique of the Republican party, really. "The one Republican I'm running against is bad for this one weirdly specific reason" ain't cuttin' it, I think.
*everything is relative, I'm no George Soros, etc.
A few tiny points.
Yes, funny/not funny how un-Xian the Xian pro-theocracy party is. Then again, I'm on record that the religion is essentially anti-progress by its own terms -- I'm thinking (and I use the term loosely) of original sin; not being an asshole is pretty much to get one into heaven so doing good while alive isn't too important. Yes, I know; not all denominations, just the politically-controlling ones.
With that is the irony that their god was born as essentially an illegal immigrant. Turned away from where they wanted to stay, not shipped back to their home nation.
Should I note that a lot of DC's problems here would be much more easily addressable were it a state.
Anyway, now-typically great state of affairs now.
Yup. Reagan. A B-list actor and Big Business spokesmodel bringing wannabe fascists to Washington, who started the transition from "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" to, eventually, "suckers and losers".
I think you’re being a little too morbid, Roy lmao. But the concept of things passing out of living memory is interesting. Americans in general don’t know history and what little they do know they don’t fully understand. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that world-wide fascism is on the rise immediately following the passing of those who remember actual Nazism.
And I think it is clearly the conservative scheme to turn back the clock so as to normalize the loss of privacy rights and autonomy for a new generation. This plan can work on various levels: as more and more people pass away who remember what life was like before Reagan, a whole host of authoritarian policies become “just the way things are.” This is also true of the economics of late capitalism: my late father, a UAW union man, worked on the assembly line at the GM plant on the Hudson River just north of NYC, and his income supported us. Impossible today.
So "Ruth and Ronald" are refugees from Venezuela and in all probability they are coming here because their economy is a shambles. Their economy is an shambles because we have spent more than a decade trying to destroy it and fomenting coups and stealing their stuff. And in all probability the best place for them to come is here. The actual world is beyond surreal.
A nation of immigrants who hate immigrants.
That's some powerful good writing boss. Edgy, flip yet heartfelt and compassionate. Thanks!
I admit the only way that I made it through catechism was the fact that I desperately wanted to spend time with a beautiful young lady named Linda in my class who made me just ache. Anyway though, I never missed classes and I think I got the gist of it. One thing I do remember is all the good guys were some kind of refugee and all the bad guys
were people who persecuted said refugees. It's not like encoded or anything.
Linda and I went to high school together. One night after band concert in the fall of my senior year I told her I was crazy about her. Always had been. Always would be. She kissed me( slow- that's always best) and said something to let me down easy. I don't remember what.
"Benches? We ain't got no benches. We don't need no benches. I don't have to show you any stinkin' benches!"
This is a beautiful essay, sir — it breaks my heart to realize how small are the resources available to those who reach out to help, ease suffering, live according to their own codes of mercy & humanity... and how the war-chests & loot bags of those who lust for conquest & control spill over.
Fuck prosperity gospel & its evil political twin, neoliberalism.
Oh, and gattdamm son — thanks for the rec for "Heart of Glass." Do you think it's on Kanopy?
Very well said. Another piquant irony, if that even does it justice, is that the most anti-American, hate-filled, selfish, hypocritical "christian" sunzabitches are the ones most likely to call themselves "patriots." Now there's a word we really shouldn't have allowed them to steal from us.
Sending the immigrants to D.C. is also the same tactic used by Belarus on the Polish border. Hateful fascists come to the same conclusions all over the world. They do not want to solve a problem or help people. Their actions under the pretense of helping others to understand the problem create more problems. They use resources to instigate reactions they believe are just natural. Everybody is a mean bastard and lacks compassion when confronted with having to do something to help people in need.
Try telling right-wingers in the US they behave like authoritarians and the old Communist Party. They somehow fail to see that locking kids up in cages at the US border has anything in common with historically similar events in other places.
'It’s a prime example of a key conservative strategy at work — aggressively fucking up government, then going 'see, government can’t do anything right.'''
Big* donation from me to any Democrat running for office who's willing to say this in public. Or any general critique of the Republican party, really. "The one Republican I'm running against is bad for this one weirdly specific reason" ain't cuttin' it, I think.
*everything is relative, I'm no George Soros, etc.
Funny that they should reserve the same treatment for immigrants from _Venezuela_.
Glad you posted the link. These "Christians" are, um, not....