Anyone else find the call to arrest Julian Assange, a non-American, for treason a little hypocritical coming from the same people who were pro-outing Valerie Plame?

And I feel the same way about Wikileaks and I did about Plame. The person committing the crime isn’t the journalist doing their job, but the government employee (Cheney, Turd Blossom) who leaks that shit.

All over the teevee, newsbunnies and talking heads and “serious people” are talking about the “shock, horror” level of discourse in society of late.

They want us little people to be more civil, more thoughtful. We only say such mean angry things because technology lets us publish without a time out to consider our words.

I have only one thing to say to that.

Fuck off you overpaid wankers.

We yell and scream, fight and insult because we are justifiably pissed off. Our country is fucked. Our economy is fucked. Our political system is fucked. And instead of doing the hard work of making it better, you all are sitting on your fucking hands whinging about how mad us little people are. Anyone doing any kind of anti-ism work will recognize your calls for civility as the meta version of “if you were only less shrill/angry/loud then people might pay more attention to you”.

The problem with our country is not the level of civility. The problem is that the 20 percent at the top, (which includes every single person who makes it on those teevee news shows) have robbed those of us at the bottom of the basic resources we need to live. We won’t be quiet about that. Uncivil words are the least of your problems.

Ugh. So I am curled up, in the dark, wearing my sunglasses so that I can look at the compy screen without puking. You know what this means, RQ has a migraine. A bad one.

I’ve been on the migraine train for a long fucking time. After rounds of expensive meds which never worked(when I had insurance, at the mo I am insurance-free, which is a nice way of saying FUCKED) the only things I can do are 1)hide because this level of pain makes me very not nice 2) take fist fulls of advil for the placebo effect 3) ban all light (though the thing they don’t tell you is that being stuck in a quiet dark room for hours/DAYS is boring as fuck) and 4) do a face plant onto a hot water bottle.

I could write odes to my hot water bottle. Best fucking 11 dollars ever spent. Seriously. I almost gave it away to a homeless guy the other night, but by the time I came back downstairs with it(and soup and coffee and warm socks and homemade bread) I think he found a shelter to sleep in. So yay? I got to keep my hot water bottle baby.

But since all these measures only make me less likely to whip out the fucking powerdrill and put a lovely stress relieving hole through my temple, I am soliciting you, oh wise ones of the internet, for your best DIY migraine cures.

In the mean time, I am going to dream of the one drug that actually worked to kill my migraines when they are this bad- vitamin V for valium. I love you valium. I miss you valium. Someday, you and me valium, you and me.

Me: “really, there is no stopping it. We are on the verge of serious societal collapse. Who you vote for doesn’t make a damn bit of difference, neither party is really going to change anything”

Various other people: Then you should buy a gun. If it’s really going to get that bad, you should have a gun.

Me: Some variation of “teenage boy in the house, blah blah blah”

VOP: No really you need a gun

Me: No really what I need to do is learn to grow some tomatoes

VOP: Then you should have a gun to protect them.

Now I am not a pacifist. I believe that self defense and defense of others are acceptable forms of violence. And I’m not even anti-gun, but again, teenage boy in the house. I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to beat the shit out of someone hurting my kid, and I have gotten in the middle of strangers trying to hurt other strangers. But I have never had to go beyond angry screaming in those situations (but from other situations that I’m not in the mood to discuss, I know I wouldn’t have a problem fighting back if it came down to it).

It does strike as a serious and not often enough discussed problem though that the VOPs in every one of these convos have all been 1)lifetime democrats and 2)Christian. I’m pretty sure that Jesus wouldn’t have been so quick to defend a tomato plant from a hungry mob. But what the fuck do I know, I’m mostly an atheist at this point.

And then tonight I am watching The Story of India (pbs documentary) and it gets to the part about Ashoka and his conversion to Buddhism after the slaughter at Kalinga. Apparently his move towards non-violence involved a pretty severe police state because “It is difficult to make men do good”.

No.Fucking.Shit.

But the problem lies in the “making” men (and as they put it in Doctor Who “women, undecideds, trees and multiforms”)do good. Making someone brush their teeth doesn’t always mean they are going to love the minty fresh feeling. What you have to do is understand that violence is as bad for those that commit it as it is for those they are violent to. It rots our brains and souls and hearts the same way plaque rots your teeth.

But again, I’m just a little almost atheist, agreeing with Buddha and Jesus on a bunch of shit that a vast majority of their followers don’t get.

Let’s see….

So women, people of color, people with disabilities, people who are not Christian, or who are not USian, or who don’t look USian enough, or who stand out in some way that doesn’t read het, cis, white, TAB, middle class (or better) and male have been complaining about the TSA since it’s inception. Shut up and deal, it’s for your protection that the government 1) treats you like a criminal 2)violates the constitution 3)if you don’t do anything wrong there is no reason for you to be singled out.

And for a very long time, those of us at the bottom of the kyriarchy have been told pretty much the same things about everyday life here in the US. Shut up, you feminists ruin all our fun. If you (POC) don’t want to be harassed by the police then don’t act suspicious. If bad shit happens it’s because you deserved it.

So it isn’t much of a surprise that mass public outrage only occurs when it’s a white dude and his junk at the airport. Same is true for our country, outrage only occurs (or is noticed) when tea partiers pout. Oh you poor het, cis, white, TAB, middle class (or better) dudes.

And our government (or the lackeys that shill for it on the teevee) responds with the usual shit, “let’s make things worse by going the corporatist route! Privatize!” Which might actually make things better for the het, cis, white, TAB, middle class (or better) dudes, but the rest of us will probably have it worse. We all know how well private security firms treat women and brown people (coughKBRcough). But the het white dudes will get passed through by other het white dudes without much of a problem. And then the whole country can go back to feeling secure that only people who deserve it will have a stranger reach in their underwear.

But the underlying problem still exists. Less security (if you include the freedom from groping and peeping toms as security) and less freedom (now that getting on a plane makes for enough reasonable suspicion of criminal activity that the government can search your person).

And none of this security theater has ever caught a terrorist. It’s missed at least 2 that we know of. What keeps us safe is good old fashioned intelligence and police work. Catch them before they ever get to the airport. The only reason to have security theater is to test just how much the American people are willing to put up with before they notice the boot on their neck. Keep scared, keep patriotic, keep the war on terror dollars flowing. No money for schools or medicine or roads, we’ve got scary brown people to kill and security theater to pay for.

So Elizabeth Warren, champion of the middle class and consumer advocacy in finance goes to work for the Obama administration and we get:

“Instead of layering on regulations that don’t fully protect consumers, a better approach would focus on how to give consumers the power to make the right choices for their families — and, at the same time, to ease the regulatory burden for the lenders.”

Look, I have the right to choose between 75 flavors of corn syrup laden breakfast cereal, with full knowledge that they are corn syrup laden breakfast cereals. What I don’t get is an affordable choice of non-toxic breakfast foods. Information is only the beginning of reform, not the answer to calls for it.

But Warren’s softening is not a surprise. You cannot work from within to fix a structure this decrepit. If try to go inside, you will be corrupted. Plain and simple. You cannot be a part of the broken system and attempt to change a broken system. You cannot consistently choose the lesser of two evils without becoming a little bit evil.

There is no one in government who represents the bottom 80% because once you get into to government, you are part of/ or working for the top 20%. That’s all there is to it. It’s not a massive secret conspiracy. There is no dark cabal meeting in secret to figure out how to take away our resources and rights. It is just good old fashioned class warfare. And our class is losing, despite the overwhelming numbers on our side, because we keep trying to play the game war by their rules. And the rules are fixed. House always wins.

(If this fucking post doesn’t have more analogies than the fucking breakfast cereal isle at your local grocery store, then your store sucks at the false choices of consumerism.)

First lemme explain something. I am a freak of nature. I love flying. I have little games I play with myself on airplanes, trying to guess the exact moment the wheels leave the ground and then touchdown somewhere else. I love the smush you back in your seat feeling of takeoff where your stomach goes a little wobbly. And I love love love the idea that you get in this metal tube and several hours later end up in a completely different place from where you started.

So it takes a lot to make me mad about flying.

But since 2001, 9 times out 10 I get my checked baggage “randomly” searched. (Happened again on our recent flight here. I wish I had collected all the TSA letters I’ve received over the years. They’d make a poignant collage).

And every time I go through the fucking Denver airport and am wearing a skirt, I (and every other woman wearing a skirt) get singled out to go through the chemical sniffer machine, that damn machine that manages to blow puffs of air in a manner that seems specifically designed to blow your damn skirt up.

And I know from stories that people in wheelchairs get subjected to extra crappy security measures.

And while I couldn’t care less about the full body scans, I understand why someone would and am fully behind those that complain.

And bad-touching little kids with enhanced pat downs. No.Fucking.Way. This mom would have you arrested if you tried to touch my kid. But if you complain, not threaten violence but threaten to use the legal resources generally known to be available to all (well not all) citizens, you’re treated as if you just threatened to blow up the airport.

And I am pretty sure that by writing this, the next time I try to fly will be a nightmare.

But it’s not okay.

I remember when I was a kid and the big scary commies in the USSR were the boogy man of the day. I remember being told that part of the reason why they were so awful was because people in the USSR weren’t allowed to travel freely. You had to get government permission to go from one town to another. And now I can’t help but think that we’re doing the same damn thing to people. Can’t travel freely if you don’t support government intrusion. If you complain it’s off to the TSA gulag for you.

All this from a country that claims to value freedom above everything else. If that ain’t fucking Orwellian I don’t know what is.

I keep hearing the same shit from those enveloped by the “fear”. Same sad old arguments. Same major disconnect from what is staring them straight in the face. And I can’t help but think about how culty they are, both dems and republicans. Both legacy parties give their members specific groups to hate, to think of as a threat. Not unlike that horrid scene in A Handmaid’s Tale where all the handmaids tear a man to shreds for raping a pregnant handmaid and killing the child (when in reality he was part of the resistance). Sure, you’ve got it bad, but here’s a fresh body to eviscerate. Both legacy parties give their followers specific talking points to repeat ad nauseum (I actually just got the OLD standard “communism fell because commies were unmotivated to work because the government took care of them line- for real). You know the modern lines- Obama is a socialist from the right, Progressives are a bunch of whiny titty babies who ruin everything from the left.

So how do we wake them up? How do we shake off all the bullshit beliefs they are buried under without wanting to swallow a bullet ourselves in frustration and tedium (because dayyyuuuum, it’s tedious and good lord they can be vicious little twits.)

What I do know is that when I remove the left/right rhetoric and just tell people what I want from my government, they almost universally agree, regardless of party. I want work to pay a wage people can live on. I want people to be able to get healthcare because they need it and not because they are wealthy enough to deserve it. I want everyone to have enough healthy food to eat. I want kids to have good schools to go to and for college to really be accessible for everyone. I want the unpaid contributions to society to count for something, like mothers and pwd who can’t work at a traditional job but still are a contributing part of society.

What I keep hearing from people is the same line “Yeah of course those things would be awesome, but we’ll never get that”. And that is a problem. Small, boxed in thinking courtesy of your traditional legacy parties. 80 percent of us need the same things, those 4 old freedoms that Roosevelt wanted, but specifically we need freedom from want and freedom from fear. And our current system is putting the screws to us hard on both accounts (thank you pervy TSA workers for adding to the fear levels with your government approved sexual assaults).

What little bit of googling I did about exit counseling for cultists involved being respectful of the cultist’s beliefs, while gently countering them with facts. I admit, I often get tangled on this part. I’m just tired of having the same argument, and those legacy party cultists sure aren’t respectful back.

But….. Once upon a time there was a world where the idea of a democratic government was something that only existed in ancient times. And once upon a time there was a world where women voting was seen as something that “would be awesome, but we’ll never get that”. Same is true for a 40 hour work week, overtime pay and OSHA regulations. Same is true for free public education. You don’t get anything if you don’t know what you want. And for the cultists, all they know to want is that the other side doesn’t win. We’ve got to give them bigger, better things to fight for than fight with each other (and us).

The kind of mood where I start smoking again.

So you all get music. M.I.A. doing Hussel

And I wish I could embed it, but you tube won’t let me. So a link to Janelle Monae doing Tightrope

Richard Armitage who plays a spy on MI5, and was a bad bad man on the new BBC Robin Hood, and was delicious in North and South, and was Dawn fucking French’s fiance on the Vicar of Dibley. Black hair, blue eyes, terribly English. Yep. He’s pretty fucking perfect.