All is not lost, it is only mistaken. That's small consolation, but I know just how you feel.

 The internet's dropping in and out again. Hasn't done this all week after Momma got the new modem from the telephone company. She thinks it's due to the heat, and hell, I don't know, it might be. It's in the high 80s outside and fairly humid.

 Anyhow, I got the screen open, so we can do what we do. I can always add links or look up stuff later. Since I'm remembering it this weekend, let's take a lot at what we saw with the News this week.

Monday

Wednesday

Friday

 I'm particularly proud of Friday's offering, a fairly deep dive into the Breeona Taylor execution. Another black person murdered because white shooters had to kill someone, another cover-up by local law, and another killing that went unknown for months until social media raised hell about it. This time, however, the killing was done by the local police in the most murderously Barney Fife way possible. They thought they were hitting a drug den which was actually 10 miles away, searching for a suspect who was already in custody.

 Check out the piece and keep your eye on this one. Wingnuts may raise Cain about how their First Amendment rights are being trampled because they can't post Nazi propaganda on Facebook or gun losers think it's perfectly natural and sane to go to Starbucks loaded for bear, but if the Fourth Amendment gets anymore tattered, none of that will matter. There is definitely a racist element, sure, and the American people as a whole are far too generous to cops who kill the wrong black person when killing anyone wasn't necessary. But if we as a culture keep giving authoritarians more and more leeway, we're going to wake one day wondering how that boot got on our neck.

 Governmental authoritarianism is nothing new. Once nations started actually becoming nations rather than kingdoms, their governments felt the need to keep a close eye on the populace, for good or ill. It is what it is. Read your Roman history. Read about John Dee. Read about the development of the Chinese Empire. I don't know how much we'd fight it, either, as we all carry locator beacons in our pockets as a part of the super computers and Hitchhiker's Guides. Hell, I'm using Google to look up some of this stuff, and they've long since given up on the whole "don't be evil" thing.

 As an aside, I don't fret too much about the "surveillance state", either from the government or Corporate America. I don't like it and know it can be abused, and it is, but I don't have to worry about it. I'm a straight white male, I'm good. I hope the System comes crashing down, but figure since it will do it to itself anyway, there's nothing I can really do to help. But the main reason is I don't think I should have to hide what I say or think from anyone. There's nothing I do that needs to be hidden, I feel. Not my love of mind-altering substances or flirtations with anarchism, I don't see any of that as anything to be ashamed of. The law changes, as the Good Doctor said, but I don't feel I have to.

 Well. I've reached word count. During my constitutional, I thought about writing about the corporate press, the mainstream media, and why most people who complain about it really don't know what they're talking about. I don't really feel like doing a deep dive now, but in a nutshell, the mainstream, big corporate press - CNN, the networks, The New York Times, even the big-time websites like Slate or Politico - are all owned by rich people or groups of rich people who incorporate themselves. Most of them are worth ridiculous amounts of money themselves. CNN is worth about five billion dollars, and Fox recently sold assets to Disney for $71 billion.

 These companies and people have a vested interest in keeping the Status Quo. That is, whatever societal changes (you think) they promote, the cold, hard economics of things aren't meant to change. That's how they got rich and how they get richer; they're not going to change that. If you honestly think CNN or the Times wants to destroy capitalism, you are a goddamn moron. Ted Turner might have wanted to change the world for (what he thinks is) the better, but he doesn't own CNN anymore.

 This is reality, but people don't want to acknowledge it and that's where the problem comes. Everything about it makes much more sense if you can recognize that little bit of wisdom and keep it in mind when using the media. It's easy to rage at Maggie Haberman and her limp approach to the Trump Administration, but her job and The New York Times' mission isn't shaking up the Status Quo. They are the Status Quo, just as Trump is, and both of them have a vested interest in keeping the gravy train going. The mainstream press is still useful, just keep that in mind.

 So, one of these days I'll get deeper into it. I keep saying that about a number of things but I haven't yet. That being said, I would totally do it if someone wants to pay me. I'm getting pretty good at deep dives to explain things, especially when I'm getting paid. Just something to think about. Just putting it out there.

Who's gonna work & let the economy grow if we all hang out in the street? Well, I don't know & I don't care, just as long as it ain't me.

 I'm in a fairly foul mood, so fair warning. The world is a mess, this country is filled with dingbats, this state is run by cheap grifters, and I'm still not getting enough decent sleep.

 I'm not linking to it, but Cenk Uygar tweeted out how if we get a Democratic president "with balls," they'd completely cut off the Red States and make them come begging for federal aid so as to punish them for electing Republicans as state leaders. You see this a lot, people wanting the South to secede again or arguing that they should've never been allowed back in the union. If they have any shame at all, they'll claim they're "just blowing off steam" over frustration at how denizens in those states always managed to screw it for the rest of us. They don't mean it, they claim.

 And that is, of course, complete bullshit. Mean it or not, just saying it - even to "blow off steam," deservedly or not - just shows you how much they don't care. And I'm not talking about white liberals/leftists being cast adrift. Nearly 40% of Mississippi's population is African American. Atlanta and New Orleans, along with having large black populations, are havens for LGBT folks. And it's not just the "undocumented workers" packing your food and picking your vegetables. The most red Midwest and West has an enormous Chicano population, most who can trace their families back before there was an America, much less a "progressive movement" much less a suburban middle class.

 And speaking of time spent compared to middle-class honkies, there are still plenty of Native tribes in red states who have been screwed, blued and tattooed by the federal government, sure, but the states don't have the best record, either. Probably what made for the final blow for Bernie Sanders' 2020 nomination run was giving up on the South just before Super Tuesday. The argument, not necessarily from him but definitely from his lieutenants, was that since the South was going red in November anyway, there was no reason to bother with them. And people wonder why Southern black folks went overwhelmingly for Biden.

 Bringing it all back around to Uyagr's nonsense, there is and has been a large strain bourgeoisie attitude towards anyone who didn't come up middle-class white and from the suburbs. You can deny this all you want, but I've seen it go all the way back to the implosion of the Greens after Ralph Nader (who's leftist bonafides are suspect to say the least). They put a few people in elected positions in a few cities, all of whom were out the door before Bush's first term was over. Then they sit on their thumbs before rolling out Dr. Jill Stein in 2016 to get stomped and then embezzled money that was supposed to go to a state recount, and that's the last we heard of it.

 Again, I'm in a bad mood and will probably regret this, but outside of work in certain cities and decent-sized towns, the "progressive movement" in America is horseshit geared more for yuppie spawn to pretend like they care until they knock each other up and start worrying about "safer neighborhoods". They don't really care about Southern or Western states, they don't care about rural areas, and concern for urban areas is more lip service than anything else while they pretend "medicare for all" and "American foreign policy".

And I hate to break it too y'all, but the money made off "American foreign policy" has way, way too much swing in this country to be too much damaged by one dude. Sanders would've fallen in line or wound up dead in a ditch. Neither he nor Elizabeth Warren were that big a danger to the groups of people who make money off blowing up brown people across the sea. I don't know how you goofballs think Jesse Ventura's the new Great White Hope of "progressive politics" when he's as much as anyone is involved with the worst horrors of the Bush Jr. Administration. Look up Paul Wellstone, Norm Coleman, how conservative media battered "The Body" into giving the GOP the edge in the Senate, and well... there you go.

 The flip side of this is, of course, the right-wing dingbats who're losing their absolute shit at being asked to hunker down for a bit so the people they actually want to go back to work die from the COVID-19. They're screaming at cashiers, physically attacking game wardens, and some poor bastard was shot to death just for asking folks to wear a goddamn mask. Even when employees are offering the mask the goons are losing their shit. And why? So Karen and Andrew can get a haircut. They're saying it's a "Constitutional" thing, and you know? That's just too dumb to dig into.

 It's been said that this whole push by right-wing politicians and pundits who can stay inside all they want are pushing this and getting the hoi polloi worked up so they can get workers fired and cut their unemployment insurance. This sort of strike would allow them to go further, cutting health insurance and employee safety regulations. Far as I can tell, this scans fairly well. Part of the appeal of being the Upper Class is the chance to enact cruelty on the plebes. And that's one of the main legs of the Republican Party. Cruelty is the point.

 "Matt, you're letting liberals and centrists off the hook." No, because y'all got that covered. I've seen enough chants of "fake news" and "liberals suck" from red roses that I'm pretty confident that, like the MAGAts, they didn't start paying attention to politics until around 2013 or so. Furthermore, they haven't put any effort into learning the history of American politics, much less how it operates from day to day. How the sausage is made, in other words. None of us are innocent, and facing the truth of American politics reminds people of that. Everyone wants to be the hero and no one wants to admit they're just another person keeping their head down.

A lot of this is why I have an affection for anarchism. It's not perfect and there are flaws or places where reality is just flat-out ignored in favor of ideology. However, I don't have to pick a group to join with to pretend I'm not guilty as everyone else. In any event, everyone should read more Emma Goldman, I don't think anyone can argue that. And, lord-a-mighty, do not get me started on just how dumb and ignorant the whole "MSM sucks/fake news" thing people don't want to bother to understand because if they're not going to spoon fed, then they'll kick the bowl away. It's easier than having to use your brain.

 Okay, got that off my chest. Heading back to the world of XCOM and XCOM: Chimera Squad and ignore the rest of the world. If I can remember it, tomorrow's News will focus on just how badly screwed Tate Reeves is with regards to the welfare scandal that's popped up. Hey, we made The New York Times. Big time, baby.