This is Not US

This is not us.  Not the us I’ve known most of my life.  Not the us my parents or their parents would recognize. Every generation of parents at some point shakes their heads in disbelief and declares the end of days. But this is different. Even during the scariest and unhealthiest points in our past we’ve maintained hope; a sense of certainty founded in the belief that our very foundation couldn’t be undone.  That confidence seems shaken, if not gone.

I don’t give a shit if you subscribe to the societal decay called the “new normal.”  You’re wrong. There’s nothing normal about it. If you do, you’re just another misguided idiot collectively responsible for national failure.  But “they” have you convinced that you’re part of a righteous majority.

Back in the day it was edgy and cool to be a trendsetter; to go your own way and race life’s road less travelled. Those that did were seen as somehow bigger than life – dangerous – drawing every breath with devil-may-care exuberance, making the more tentative water-testers among us envious and somehow smaller.  They were the risk-takers.  The indestructibles.  The ones who threw caution to the wind regardless of what direction it was blowing. The iconic ones that could rationalize the risk/reward equation on the fly while water-testers watched from the edge of the pool. And by pushing beyond the safety of convention they molded America into the world leader in education, industry, finance, medicine, technology, military strength, sports, and music. They were the female and male heroes that the world strived to emulate.

But trends change.  The definition of success and even beauty has morphed to levels of the extreme… an American addiction… with nothing being exactly good enough.  We’ve now drawn on our bodies – even faces – referring to the natural beauty of our skin as “canvas.”  We’ve pierced, stretched, scarred, implanted, and otherwise defiled the human form in the name of self-expression and uniqueness.  And now everyone looks the same.  Again.  

Who would have guessed that even birth gender could be questioned, dismissed, and “reassigned” – with the expectation of absolute societal acceptance – even if the result is an obvious violation of civil liberties, including; safety, fairness, and human dignity.

But we’re better for it, right?  We’re stronger, healthier, smarter, kinder and more socially aware.  Let’s face it, we’re not.  Our society has become fractured, pathetically weak, addicted, poor, lazy, unhealthy, undereducated and ignorant, over-medicated, mean-spirited, narcissistic, completely self-absorbed… and dependent on the very monster that has crushed civilized societies throughout human history. 

And to ensure our social death spiral we ignore and rewrite history.  Our education system has been directed to not look back.  There’s an occasional glance in the review mirror but only if that fits the narrative of our abhorrent driving record and the innocent bloodied bodies we’ve left strewn in the road, and then only to foment anger and hatred for our culture.

Our current national icons are a snapshot of the disease that is America in the 21st century.  Ignorance and vulgarity, to the point of dipshittery, are the norm and Americans follow the disgusting lack of leadership in lemming-like conformity.  We’re so starved for leadership that we cling to anyone that gives us the slightest sense of hope and direction.  So we end up with leaders that we wouldn’t trust to walk our dogs much less guarantee our national wellbeing. Yet we allow it, falling into a kind of malaise born of hopeless frustration.  Kind of like being sick for so long that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel well, so we reluctantly swallow a double-dose of NyQuill just to sleep through the illness.

Have we reached the point of such despair that we’ve lost our fight for basic human dignity? Are we really that hopelessly lost and dependent that we expect others to do the work?  Oh, that’s right, based on lies and false promises we’ve hired a gaggle of misfits that have held political office for the past few decades in our “Representative Democracy”.  Let’s face it, we’re not being governed, we’re being subjugated.

Where’s your fight?  Where’s your outrage?  Where are the feminists I knew in college that were part of the struggle for recognition and equality that are now turning a blind eye to the mental cases with dicks that are pretending to be women so they can win a trophy?  Where are the parents that I knew that would kill or die to protect their children from harm yet allow a born-again woman with a dick the “right” to use a bathroom shared by their young child? I can’t stand you and your silence in the name of social acceptance or fear of being branded “moral,” “right,” or “white.”

Nothing should be blindly accepted.  Our parents questioned authority and the motives of anyone or group that told them what to do. But we’re the next generation.  We’re smarter and more aware.  We’re vaccinated and wear masks.  We look to geniuses like Hollywood actors, millionaire douchebags that play catch for a living, spokespeople controlled by foreign governments, agenda-driven twats like Bill Gates and Tony Fauci, and media personalities that have no formal training or experience in anything relevant to the opinions they espouse.  And what do we have to show for it?  Rampant confusion, dysphoria, and fragility; the trifecta of weakness and failure, allowing for the silent forfeiture of sovereignty. 

Our government has created this nightmare with the best of intentions but the system became too large and corrupt.  We’ve made it too easy to simply exist with no effort.  Our politicians have confused unalienable rights with personal and national responsibility. We’ve been conditioned to believe that everyone  deserves wealth, success, and happiness and we’ve lived that lie for decades.  We were given a gift by birthright; the opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. None of it is automatic, free, or guaranteed. The meek will not inherit the earth.  They will always be ruled.

Monsters Among US

All monsters are created; they don’t just happen.  

 

There are all kinds of monsters: those created by greed, power, addiction, loneliness, prejudice, twisted genetics, dependency, indulgence, or any combination of poisons that feed its existence. Everyone’s lived a monster: their own or someone else’s.  Maybe you’re one and don’t know it.  The quirk all monsters have in common is that they’re able to walk past a mirror and not see what’s staring back.

 

The longer we go, the more monsters we’ll face.  I’ve lived my share: the one I hid from as a kid, an invisible one that ate my parents, a blonde one with pale skin that lied love, a dark soft-voiced one that whispered in the ear of two friends and convinced them to end, and the one that gnaws at my soul that I’ve created through hope and indulgence.

 

Monsters can’t exist on their own: every one of them has a creator/enabler driven by good intentions, paving the road to hell.  The 700 pound mass of humanity, imprisoned in his bed, didn’t get from there to here without a loving enabler shoveling Big Macs, Cheetos, and Ring Dings in his face like a mother robin.  Similarly, social and political monsters can’t exist without spoiled offerings of the well-intentioned.

 

Ego inspired Doctor Frankenstein.  His motivation was true enough; giving life to the dead. Immortality. He didn’t create his “perfect specimen” to wreak destruction on the countryside. But, like the mad doctor, creator/enablers are blinded by one-sided vision for the future and are incapable of running the mental gamut of “what-if’s” by which monster-dodgers survive.

 

As if facing personal monsters isn’t daunting enough, we’re now witnessing the creation of a social beast the likes of which my generation has never seen.  We’re too new.  Too misinformed. Too distracted. 

 

The lessons of history, considered irrelevant by many, are no longer taught and are being suppressed and forgotten.  Societal values are being lost to mob-thought veiled in righteous collective-courage. Manipulative guilt-projecting word salads, tossed with trend-concepts like systemic racism, virtue signaling, white privilege, wokeness, reimagining (anything), and critical race theory have been weaponized to suppress truth and avoid root cause analysis.

 

European enablers have lived the broiling stench of Its birth several times, feeding their perfect specimen with human misery. Their history bears the scars of a thousand monsters and without exception every one has soiled its path with pain and anguish.

 

But all monsters have a common vulnerability; they have insatiable appetites but can’t feed themselves.  Nourished by enablers, they gorge on anger and weakness and shit blame, fouling everywhere they roam. 

 

There is only one way to stop a monster: take away the poison on which it feeds. If you are or have ever been in the grasp of a monster you’ll understand the challenge. Enablers will not willingly allow their creation to starve; because without their perfect specimen they are irrelevant.

 

Take a hard look at society’s enablers and consider what they offer humanity in the absence of their monster.  There will always be enablers.  There will always be monsters.  Turn your back on both.

 

 

Chickpeas & Lime Zest

Women change. Evolve. “Grow.” Guys don’t. We’re like dogs. We just age. Over the years we like the same food. The same music. The same underwear. The same snacks and treats. A favorite old coat with tattered cuffs. And we have at least one pair of jeans that should have been thrown out when the first Bush left office.

I loved brownies as a kid. I still love brownies (without nuts). For some reason my evolver finds it necessary to deviate from the tried-and-true staples of man-life, mostly with food.

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Bob “Fish” Fishelson

If you’re lucky, you knew Bob. But who didn’t? Of all the people I’ve known, Bob has been the common thread, the guy that has proven the human connection theory of six degrees of separation. He was simply everyone’s friend. Bob “Fish” Fishelson got tired and left us today.

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