A Dang Shame

Sure liked The Dukes of Hazzard when I was a wee child.  Beautiful man voice theme song, talkin about those beautiful boys that never meant no harm.  They just wanna fly their pretty orange car over random rivers, pursued by unscary little comic relief policemans.  One of them had a floppy-eared dog.  Sometimes there was a pretty lady there.  When stuff got too wild, beardy uncle would settle it down.  If I remember all that right.

I loved the shape of a muscle car, the perfect combination of boxy and curvy, the dark grill reminiscent of the intakes on jet engines, the feeling of power and possibility.  They stopped making cars shaped like that and I always wished they’d bring them back.

Well, around pandemic time, they actually did.  Muscle cars exist again, happy day!  But I’m not four years old anymore, don’t live in a world where fast driving never kills or disfigures people, don’t live in a world where gratuitous fossil fuel use is a harmless lark.

And just everything about that piece of shit tv show has aged equally well.  It put a shiny sexy funtimes gloss on the worst shit imaginable, just the worst crimes in human history.  Hundreds of years of monstrous evil defended to the dying breath under that fucking orange flag.  The way the flag’s renewed popularity in the 20th century had always been a banner for the proud perpetuation of dehumanization and oppression, of lionizing the villains of history that Hitler himself was inspired by.

General Lee, fuck your memory and fuck the people who tried to sing it sweetly to tiny children.  Fuck whatever ancestors of mine that put our surname on generations of their rape victims, their human “property.”  Fuck ameriKKKa for clinging to the idea of our virtue on the blood-drenched soil of this land, echoes of absolute horror in every ruined plot and parking lot from sea to polluted sea.

Unrelated, fuck street racers, who care so little about the lives of others they endanger them every day for cheap thrills.  Rest in pieces you criminal fuckers.  May all your buddies mangle only their own flesh, may they fly past the innocent and burst into flames alone.

Shame shame shame, a little song of shame.  Then I return to idle fancies and daydreams in my usual way.  A floppy-eared dog hanging his head out an unproblematic car, flying merrily through a consequence-free world.

–

had a dream the other night i was some gal’s gay best friend, so i had an excuse for not knowing how to drive, hey, same excuse i have irl, except i have no hetero bff here.

anyway, we went to a little movie theater where you reserved your seat by taking a slice of cake, the colors of which corresponded to the movie you wanted to see.  but the only slices remaining were the white ones with rainbow splotches, corresponding to the cg smurf threequel, so we took no cake and watched nothing.

–

USA, More Weimar Than Weimar

A few years ago it was hot to compare the USA to the short-lived Weimar Republic of Germany, the one that was replaced by the nazis.  The situation in Germany was largely attributed to the punitive treatment of country after World War One.  Somehow (demonizing socialism, never meaningfully addressing any crimes the US committed, never willing to face the hateful core of America’s real values), we did this to ourselves, no major military loss necessary.  Congrats?  Anyway, the comparison never stopped being valid.

Right now we are even closer to nazi rule than we were under Trump himself.  The way power is structured in this country guarantees the GOP a seat at the table, and they’ve gone full goosestep.  Many states are already falling under laws that are equivalent to the book burning at the Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.  Don’t say pronouns law?  Rampant book banning?  The dismantling of a single university in Florida under that state’s governor?  The exact mirror of Bolsonaro’s raids on universities in Brazil.  Expect it to go nationwide as soon as we have a nazi president.  I’d say republican but at this point that is fully redundant.

The howling jackals of fascism are gearing up for total conquest, and all they need is the executive branch to clinch the end of our weak-ass imitation of a democracy.  It’s just a matter of time.  They will get the presidency again.  One possible way to prevent a future nazi president from devastating this country with executive orders would be to curtail the powers of the president substantially.  I’d like to see that happen, but power fucken looooves power, and will never put meaningful restrictions on new powers that have been allowed.  The same way we can’t make meaningful taxes happen on the rich once they’ve been given breaks.

I was put in mind of this by the way there are good things happening right now, mostly from executive action.  There are executive orders, but also appointed heads of government agencies making progressive policies within their remit – like the way you can, for the moment, change your gender marker on your Social Security card or passport without need for proof documents.  Expect all of that to be reversed with a single pen stroke under the next nazi president.

It’s best to just be prepared for it, emotionally and physically.  Think, what will my role be under nazism?  We can’t all be armed fighters.  Some of us will have to settle for smaller acts of resistance.  As republicans expand their hate campaigns and shore them up in the legal systems of their states, anybody who murders a trans person, no matter how flagrantly, will be let off the hook – like Emmett Till’s killers.  For that matter, expect all reproach or rebuke for killer cops to end.  Many who have already been jailed will probably get pardoned.  At least the white ones.  Under a republican president, we may see concentration camps for trans people (we never stopped having them for immigrants), probably gay folk as well.  The idea has already been floated, in Arizona I think?  Jewish people will be far from safe.  I have no idea what kind of crack fucks like Ben Shapiro are smoking, that they are willing propagandists for the nazi side.

That’s the obvious stuff, the stuff they’re already announcing as future plans.  But what about the stuff that hasn’t been stated yet?  That is historically part of the fascist agenda?  Military conquest.  Fascism fucks a country up, and to maintain the illusion it’s a reasonable way to do things, they need to sack resources from other countries.  The easiest targets will be Cuba, Haiti, and other Caribbean countries.  Might see an Axis-type alliance with Brazil if things go sideways there again.  Ultimately Canada and Mexico would be occupied territory.  Hopefully no nukes will be used, but given the expansion of first strike capabilities under Trump, it’s anybody’s guess.  I’m guessing the Mexican resistance will do some righteous terrorism on our asses.  Maybe the resistance under Vichy Canada will also impress?

Eventually US fascism will fall to whatever nonsense comes next.  But consider this.  Even in nazi germany, some people could live almost sorta kinda normal lives.  Have love, have children, work, nurture, make art, etc.  Bad things will happen on a terrible scale, but life will go on, and eventually the worst things will pass.  Fight if you can, live if you can’t.  Don’t give up hope, because, ultimately, anything can happen – including your own happily ever after.

As always, long live the fighters.  Death to fascism.

Blatantly Rigged Trial Ends as Expected

I guess all nazis have to do to get away with murder is have their teen sons pull the triggers.  Given the public statements of the judge in murder boy’s case, I want nobody to act surprised by this outcome.  Outraged is cool, yeah, do that.  But surprise?  That would just be silly.

There’s a foul stench of danger hanging over this country, that the barely concealed racist fascism of the turn of our century will go overt, will remove the last pretenses of democracy from our processes and usher in a new era of far greater horrors.  I can understand people feeling hopeless – and especially turning up their noses at our supposed liberal political party – but we can’t stop until this is over.

I mention these things because stuff like the result of this court case is empowering to the fash, which will make them more motivated to turn up in numbers next election, depending on what happens in the meantime.  And what’s been happening lately is a 24-7 doubt parade from corporate media on the ability of the democrats generally and Biden particularly to govern.  The “people say” style of reportage is in full gear, where any nasty fucked up lie from billionaire-funded nazi-ass think tanks turns into a headline.

Protestors will be returning to the streets.  Some are probably there already.  And now murderers have been forearmed with precedent for how to get away with straight-up executing them in broad daylight.  But people will fight on anyway, and I fucking love them for it.  Long live the fighters!  Black Lives Matter.  Black Power Now!

–