Wednesday, November 4, 2020

Election night hangover

 I’m going to kvetch and get it out of my system.

 The ballots aren’t all counted. Trump is declaring victory and insisting the count is stopped, but anyone who’s surprised by that hasn’t been paying attention the last four years. Biden has a slight lead in the electoral count, but as of right now, 71 votes are still up in the air. Pennsylvania seems to be the keystone and there have been shenanigans going on there all day. Some hinky shit has been going on in Georgia, which is also up in the air.

 Voting is stopped for the evening and will continue in the morning. Trump is going to try to stop it and Biden says he’s going to fight it. The impression I’m getting through Twitter is that a lot of folks in conservative media are of the opinion Trump went too far with this. I’m not sanguine, but the week will be one.

 Now, the reason I said that was to get it out of the way. If you've read this blog or my stuff over at The News at the WordPress site - or even the stuff at the Tumblr site - it'll come as no revelation that I don't have much for Trump, his cabinet, the GOP in general, and the entire conservative infrastructure, from the talking heads and media bloviators to the bagmen and movers behind the scene. I don't pretend to be unbiased or bipartisan in my loathing for them. I sincerely believe that the ills and evils in American society derive directly from the blackened heart of American Conservativism.

 I rarely discuss the Democratic Party because, frankly, they're rarely all that interesting. Whether it's old-timers or even the firebrand young guns in the Squad, most of their legislation is what they've been doing for as long as I've been paying attention to politics, just shit to keep the ship of state afloat without the plebes going after them with ropes and sharpened farm implements. You rarely see them doing things like taking away affordable health insurance or constitutionally define marriage to exclude gay people.

 It may take them forever to actually recognize the validity of gay marriage, but they'll get around to it when we make enough noise. LBJ didn't pass the Civil Rights Acts out of the goodness of his cholesterol-sodden heart, he did it because shit had gotten so fierce that there would be blood in the streets had he not. We're near that with the issue of police brutality and that's going to turn real ugly real soon unless something is done.

 But I'm getting off-topic. My problem right now is soi-disant leftists, socialists, communists, and basically anyone on the left side of the political spectrum who're taking tonight to point how ineffective the mainstream party is and how much better the leftists, socialists, communists, yadda yadda would do if they were given the reigns. And that's the problem.

 I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. I wasn't crazy about Al Gore or Bill Clinton, for that matter, and living in Georgia, I figured the state would go for George W. Bush. I figured, hey, let's try to make things where a third party could get a little play. It came close and despite it all, I figured either Nader or the Green Party would do something with that passion and support.

 But they didn't. If drifted away like a fart in the wind and Bush readjusted the precedent. Kerry was a lightweight and Obama really, really didn't shake the tree that much. So when Bernie Sanders came along in 2016 and re-lit a bunch of fires, the soi-disant left had another chance to do something with that passion and energy even though they didn't get the nomination of the party they claimed were as bad as the Republicans.

 And we got Joe Biden, who's fairly pedestrian and dull at best. Why? Because the Sanders people didn't even bother to try to expand their base beyond what they already had in hand when they actively didn't try to push away anyone who didn't give a knee. And even after Biden won the nomination and Sanders came into work with him, they really didn't do anything with the passion and energy but piss and moan they're not getting the wheel.

 Okay, I'm tired, so let's wrap this up. "Matt," I hear you say, "you criticize conservatives of all stripes and the soi-disant left. Where do you stand?" I don't know if I can give you a name, per se, but one of the reasons I appreciate anarchism as a political philosophy is I really don't have to align myself with one political ideology or another. Don't get it twisted, I am far, far to the left. Whatever the question or stance, I take the left of it.

 Defund and rebuild the police. Decriminalize all drugs. Deform and rebuild the prison system, making private prisons illegal. Tax the living shit out of anyone who pulls down more than six figures a year for whatever reason they make it, especially unearned income. Slash military funding and use that money for infrastructure, nationalized health care, universal basic income, and housing for everyone that wants it.

 Hierarchy of any kind is suspect and there is no reason to believe that communism would be any better (or worse) for human happiness than capitalism. Authority demands respect and respect must be earned. There is no viable argument that a person must submit to someone in authority, be they a cop or your boss, just because that's "how it's done." Life shouldn't be too expensive for anyone to enjoy.

 One of the biggest failures of COVID-19 is we're a culture that allows people who are multi-billionaires to get richer doing absolutely nothing and they give absolutely nothing back than the crumbs they were giving in the first place. The richest 10 people in America made over $10 trillion off investments and the stock market during the first six months of the pandemic while 30-plus million lost their jobs.

 This is different from politics. Politics, the man said, is the art of controlling your environment. It's also been compared to sausage in that you really don't want to see how it's put together. Whatever the Trump and Biden people do throughout the week, however the Democrats and Republicans react to how the Senate and House shake out, all that's politics. Just like they need to give up waiting on a Savior, people need to wrap their heads around the simple fact that even in the state the size of Mississippi - a little over two million people - you're not to satisfy everyone much less get everyone in lockstep.

 Anyhow. I'm wandering again and my head's starting to hurt. Might have to break into that Klonopin before the week's out. I'll say it again, this is no longer my world. I'm 45, unmarried with no kids. I doubt I'll ever change that and really, really don't want to. I've got maybe 30 years on this planet before my body gives out. I have land and guns, own my house and unless something drastic happens, I'm debt-free. I leave nothing behind me but this land. So I'm just going to keep enjoying myself and trying to make people's days a little more pleasant than it might have been.

 If this culture is what y'all want for your future and the future of your offspring, go nuts. I'm out in the boonies and medical marijuana has passed in Mississippi. Otherwise, I'm just here taking notes.

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