It's Friday, time for some outrage

Friday October 10, 2009

. . . . .It'd be nice to start off with something normal and gentle on a rainy Friday, but that ain't the way it's gonna be today, not at all.

. . . .I've often written in this column about the insanity that's being fomented in the wingnut and whackjob crowd, and how perilously close we are to some truly frightening shit.

. . . .It sadly goes back for a bit, the Holocaust Museum shooter, the shooter in Pittsburgh that took out 3 cops, the murder and hanging of the Census worker in Kentucky with "Fed" written across his chest. Then finally Red States actually has the audacity to run a column (since taken down) asking for an armed insurrection, the Facebook poll asking if the President of the United States should be killed, and culminating in a video posted on YouTube by some group calling itself the National Militia Soldiers of Freedom that told the President to get out of the country by Oct. 15th "or else" there will be a "national declaration of war".

. . . .I'm going to ask this of you, repost this damn thing everywhere, I don't care. Forward the e-mail, click "share" on Facebook, copy and paste it, but get the damn thing out there. I'm tired of this crap, and I'm saying, enough is enough.

. . . .Enough of this shit. I'm giving any reader fair warning, the next section is written like I talk, so it's profane, it's graphic, and it may offend you. Too bad. It's written by me, because I don't speak for anyone else, and it's personal, it's written specifically to and for the National Militia Soliders of Freedom and shitstains just like them. Just before we get started, can I tell you how much I hate it when people like these sewer rats use phrases like "The people". Now, that's insecurity for you, right there. I'm self-aware enough to know that I can only ever speak for myself, and using anything collective is akin to paranoid delusion and some fairly grandiose shit.

My own damn Declaration

ATTN: National Militia Soldiers of Freedom, and any other wingnut whacked-out Birther, 9/12'er, Tea Bagger or any other shit for brains wanna-be revolutionary sitting in your basement glued to Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh and sweatily having nasty thoughts about Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin.
Pay close attention to something here, and see if you can connect the dots. We live in a democratic republic, with it's foundational document having as it's first words "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Those would be the first words of the Declaration of Independence. In other words, you are now starting to trample on my inalienable rights with your bullshit, and I'm getting pissed.
Let's go over some things that possibly you missed while you nodded and drooled all the way through Civics and Government class. First of all, do you even have a clue what a democratic republic is? It's a system wherein a country is ruled by law, has a representative government, no monarch and is democratic in nature. That means we do get to have a revolution, a peaceful one, every 4 years. You pick your candidate, you go to the polls, you vote for that candidate, no one tells you who to vote for, no one knows who you voted for, the votes are counted, and the majority wins. It's America, that's how we do it. If the guy you wanted doesn't get there, too bad, the will of the people spoke, you suck it up, count yourself lucky to live in a democracy, pull it together and go to work for the common good of the country, and know that you'll have another shot in 4 years. If shitheads like you had your way, we're one Molotov cocktail away from Haiti or Honduras. That whole thing about democracy and a republic, what it does is guarantee that you have a voice. Just pick your phone up, call your representative, e-mail your Senator, write a letter to your representative, you have that option. But be mindful, dipshits, yours is only one voice, it counts, and you've got a right to your opinion (oops, ask someone in Venezuela or Iran if their voice or their vote really counts), but in the end it's only one voice, and needs to bend to the will of the majority. See, that's what corruption of the republic really is, putting your own shit, your own damn agenda, ahead of the common, long-term good of the people of that republic, and it's future generations to come.
Did it ever occur to your fevered brains that the mere fact that you can write and post shit like that on a blog, make a video and post it on YouTube means that you don't live in a totalitarian state, that you live somewhere that is a democracy? Just try asking anyone in Iran, North Korea or China about posting something like that on a blog or YouTube. Wait, you can't, they're not allowed to.
Oh yeah, and that take up arms thing? The mere fact that you have them, and that the cops didn't come busting down your doors in the middle of the night after you wrote or posted that drivel and "disappear" you speaks for itself too. Just ask anyone in Argentina or Chile. Wait, you can't, even their families don't know what happened to them and don't know where they are.
I'm so damn sick and tired of hearing "I want my America back", "I want my country back". It's not your America, it's not your country. It's not mine either. It doesn't belong to anyone. It's America period, and you are damn lucky to live here.
I don't know if your mothers drank a lot while you were in the womb, if your father beat the shit out of you, or if you even know who your father is, I don't know why people like you are crosswired the way you are, but I've known dimbulbs like you my entire life. I come from a particular Irish strain that has had to put up with people like you trying to conquer our island, didn't work. We've had to put up with people like you trying to starve us out, potato famine. That worked, but we came here. And we wound up in places like Corktown in Detroit, 5 Points in New York, South Bay in Boston, Irish Bayou in Louisiana. We were dirt, and we put railroads together alongside the Chinese. Worked in mills alongside the Italians, the Czechs and the Poles in Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Youngstown. Worked in auto plants in Detroit, right alongside Blacks. Worked in textile mills all up and down the East Coast. I've seen people like you my entire life, people who think always that it's someone else who's to blame for their life's problems; it's always some immigrant, someone else, anyone but the person staring back at you in the mirror who made the damn choices in the first place that put you into the position that you're in now. You've forgotten that this is a country and land of self-determination, and that your destiny is your own to write, and that's there's a few million people just wanting to sweat it out and provide for their kids, and are willing to put your shoulders to the wheel and do it.
On my great-grandfather's side of the father's family, the Canadian Dakota side? Watch that whole militia thing, will you? It was the 3rd Colorado Irregulars, the militia, who rode through the camp at Sand Creek,a camp of First Nations people, my great-grandfather's people, singing Amazing Grace while they were bashing in the heads of children to save bullets, using bayonets to stab women and old folks.
Every time a piece of shit like you shouts the words "fascism", "communism", "socialism" and compares a sitting President of the United States to Adolph Hitler, the single largest embodiment of evil to ever draw breath, you just pissed on every grave of every U.S. soldier at Normandy, at Utah and Omaha beach. You're so fortunate, you never had to do that. A Democratic kid from Tennessee sitting in a foxhole, taking fire and covering his Republican buddies back from Ohio. Every time one of you posts a video on YouTube or writes a tract or a manifesto, I want to grab you by the scruff of the neck and go rub your face in the dirt of those graves, and force you to apologize. Maybe by now, you're getting the hint, I'm not a peace at all costs liberal, I'm a genuine, 2nd Amendment believing and carrying American.
Every time one of you thinks somehow that you've "sacrificed" and makes a proclamation of some kind, I want to take you to the Vietnam Wall in D.C. and smash your face into it, until the blood from your broken nose runs down that marble and over those names, U.S. soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country, in a land where no one wanted them and no one knew why they were there.
You got no clue what America is, what this country is, and how damn fortunate you are, how damn lucky, and I don't think any amount of education will ever help you, you're just that damn stupid. Quit trying to mix your "ism's" together by the way, if you'd paid the slightest attention in school, and hadn't been so high, you'd know that the three you accuse a sitting U.S. President of are completely dissimilar, and in some points are completely in opposition to one another.
Hell, I'm not even a Democrat or a liberal. I'm a Libertarian, the real kind, and not a recent one. The kind who believes in individual liberty and rights above all, for each and every person. I don't even really like the policies of this guy, and have a few beefs with them. But, he is the sitting President of the United States, elected by due Constitutional process, as ratified by the United States Congress and the Electoral College, and my allegiance is to my country first. I'm an American before I'm any political party, or any partisan stripe, or any ideological stripe. I may have despised George W. Bush's policies, but as an American citizen, I would have taken a bullet for him as the President of the United States, the country is just that damn important, and that's the difference between you and me.
Do you know what America even is asshats? Do you? America is a Democrat and Republican working side by side on a press, respecting one another's rights, America is a liberal and a conservative working side by side bringing oil up out of the ground, disagreeing fully with one another's politics, and still being friends at the end of the work day. America is my friends and my family. America is people I know. It's my friends Pooch, Matt, Mike and Craig shaking their heads at my weird ideas, but sure as hell knowing that they can't stop me from having them. It's my friends Jeff, Jon and Rudy rolling their eyes at my extreme belief in individual liberty and freedom at all costs, but knowing that I might be onto something. It's my friend Stephen out in Idaho, trying to become an educator, and help further generations. It's my friend Matthew out in Illinois, standing by his belief in self-determination and being willing to put it out there. It's Rocky, Eric, George, Abdul and Fouro all facing off with Doug, David, Aaron, and Ken over on Alan Colme's thread on Facebook, going at it hammer and tong, but sure as hell willing to all allow one another the right to an opinion and a voice. It's my friends Barbara, Lulu, Aimee, Amy,Alisha, Gary, Lee, Tom, Jim and countless others, who work so hard to bring help to those who need it and peace to people who don't know any in their own lives.
Then, there's people like me, most definitely the 180 opposite of people like you, because I'll cover any of those people's back if I have to, and am willing, no questions asked, in a heartbeat, to make the ultimate sacrifice for my country.
It's also my bros, the ones whose names weren't listed above, men who I know have my back. See here's how it is, National Militia Soldiers of Freedom. The day you take up arms, the day you decide to fire on citizens of this country, on domestic soil, you just became an enemy. You just made yourself the exact same thing as bin Laden, Ahmadenijad or Khaddafy. The last person to have the same ideas as you only managed to kill a bunch of children in daycare in Oklahoma City. The day you decide that it's real, and you make a decision to do that, you become nothing more than a nasty smelling and looking streak on the side of the bowl that needs to be hosed out. So go ahead, make your declaration, or whatever, you want to call it, on October 15th. Somewhere down the road, we'll run across one another, and I'll be there, sash staked to the ground, the way will be shut, and you'll go no further and it will be the most miserable day of your cursed life. I really, really won't care if it's just me, because no matter how many of you there are, no matter how many weapons you decide to bring, it won't be enough. It'll be just you and me, and the rest is all just rock and roll. May the Creator have mercy on your soul. Now, go get a clue as to how lucky you are to live in America, nor yours, not mine; just what it is, America.


. . . .Congratulations to President Barack Obama on the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize this morning. Now, let me get this straight. Last week, according the Right wing, the loss of the Olympic bid was due to world's rejection of Obama. Now, this morning, according to the same people, it's an indication that the world is sycophantic of Obama. I have such a hard time keeping the narrative straight, it changes from day to day, and sometimes hour by hour.

. . . ."We condemn the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama" - Official statement from the Taliban. So how far off the reservation is the Republican party, the conservatives and the Right Wing? So far off, they find themselves, now today, October 10th, as the only people to (1) be in accord with Hamas and the Taliban as condemning the awarding of the Nobel and (3) they actually are proud of the fact that they stood up and cheered when the U.S. lost the Olympic bid. The party of Abraham Lincoln, of Dwight D. Eisenhower, of William F. Buckley, has become the party of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

. . . .And that's the way it is:

. . . . .. . . .We can salvage this shipwreck of a Nation. It will take all of us working together. It will take all of us understanding the concepts of the Great American Experiment, the political process of the Republic. It's amazing, I don't see eye-to-eye on every issue with my friends, but we respect one another's opinion, share information, share facts, and we don't talk over one another or at one another, we talk with one another. It's amazing what happens when a group of people who share the common goal of leaving a better country for their children and grandchildren can do when they sit down with one another as human beings, and realize that we each have power, and together, we are unstoppable.

. . . .I'm going to ask this of you for the next 30 days. Turn your TV off, turn your radio off. Start to use that beautiful mind that your Creator gave you, that your underpaid, underappreciated High School teachers tried to develop. If you hear something, if you read something, if someone sends you an e-mail that says "this bill will do this", or "this politician says this", I'm asking you to check it out. Check it out this way, use some of the following fact-based sites, who exist solely for the purpose of data and fact-checking.
- If whatever you've heard or read concerns a bill in Congress, use the following -
- Open Congress, it's non-partisan and devoted to a complete tracking of every bill in Congress, both houses. How a bill is developed, who is sponsoring it, what the riders are, what the discussion around it is.
- GovTrack, again non-partisan, non-commercial and open source; devoted to the same things, tracking Congress.
- Open Secrets, one of the most important ones, it tracks the lobbying money and campaign contributions flowing to your congressperson, and most of the time is a pretty good predictor of how they'll vote.
- Political Party Time, non-partisan, devoted to solely tracking political fundraisers, and letting you know exactly what parties your Representative and Senators are throwing for fundraisers and who is attending and how much money they're throwing at them to gain influence.

. . . .If someone sends something to you saying "this is so" or "that is so" or "the President/Senator/Representative said this" use the following:
- Fact Check, non-partisan, designed to separate fact from bullshit and fiction
- Snopes, devoted to the same thing.
- Politifact, devoted to getting to the truth, and separating out the lies that are spread.


. . . .I keep doing this not because I don't have faith, but because I do have faith. I have faith in the ultimate triumph of the spirit, intellect and heart of the American people. I have faith that the people I know want to leave something better for future generations, and know that something is terribly wrong, and want to do something about it. I do it because Paine and Jefferson were brilliant, unique singularities and were right.

. . . .I keep doing this because I don't believe in big imaginary friends for adults, I don't believe in alien conspiracies running the Government, I don't believe the Roswell bodies are at Wright-Patterson, I don't believe that a big portal will open up on Dec. 21, 2012, I don't believe that the spaceships will show up.

. . . I do believe that the people who have fucked everything up are greedy, avaricious human beings who have been able to steal from the American people, to harm them, who have run unchecked because no one calls it out for what it is. I believe that if we shine the light of day on it, if the people of this country have had enough, we can change it, and change it for the better.

. . . . I keep doing this because I do believe that people, human beings, unchecked will continue to do what they've done throughout history, and throughout the history of this country. Together, they will find the solutions and provide better for their children and grandchildren.

. . . .I believe in us, I believe in people. I believe in the beauty, power and grace of the individual.

. . . .I do this for everyone who's ever walked that lonely road of knowing what they do, what they believe, what they know is right. I do it for everyone who's ever walked that lonely road of faith, hope, love, hate, justice, war and peace.

. . . .I do it because I believe in justice, in all it's forms.

. . . .I do this everyday for the people and kids who are tattoed, pierced and inked and keep getting told to get "into the mainstream". I do this everyday for those guys who wear black that you don't understand, you just know there's something about them, and that when the chips are down, when you have to walk down a dark alley somewhere, and you know what's waiting for you at the end of it, and you can only take one person with you, that's who you want walking with you, because you know you'll come back out alive, and that guy doesn't care what it costs him.

. . . .I do this everyday for the outcasts, the misfits, the ones who don't fit and who will turn their back on you and walk away when you try to make them fit into a mold. I do it everyday for everyone who does it their way, knows that they're paying a high price for it, but the freedom is worth the cost.

. . . . I do this everyday for outlaws, cowboys, renegades, pirates and fallen angels. I do it everyday for the people who understand that rock and roll can save their soul, that redemption can be found in a 3-chord lick from a vintage Les Paul. I do it for the men and women who aren't afraid to turn it all the way up, who keep looking for an 11 setting on a volume knob that only goes to 10, who know that rock and roll's got nothing to do with age.


. . . .If right now, you're doing something you don't want to do, stop it. If you've surrounded yourself with people who want you to do or be something other than who you are, walk away. If you've got people around you who actually let it slip out that they think you "should be doing (fill in the blank here)" and it involves your life, your future, your existence as an individual, walk away, right now, and don't look back. You don't owe anyone anything. Live fearlessly. If the people around you can't accept it, can't accept you as you are, really are, they aren't and weren't friends anyhow.

. . . .Don't march to anyone else's drumbeat, don't drink the Kool-Aid, anyone's. Right, Left, conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, Christian, Buddhist, Pagan. Use your own mind, that's why you were given one. Examine, question, do what's right for you first, everything else will fall in place from there, quit looking for the path, you're already on it.

. . . .Come out of the gate each morning with both barrels blazing, pedal-to-metal, full-tilt boogie, all-in and balls-out, what's stopping you? Do you want to live forever? That'd be boring.

. . . .Got your back. somewhere out there in the night

. . . .Kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do. Seize the precious moments before they're ripped away from you. This rodeo is a one-way ticket and no one, absolutely no one gets out alive. There aren't a lot of second chances, and we don't get to dictate terms and circumstances of how the ticket gets punched. This ain't no dress rehearsal, and the curtain's gone up, it's real and right now. It's not about yesterday or tomorrow. It's about right fucking here, right fucking now. This, what you're reading, what you're hearing, is the proof, the words, the sounds and the sights of someone changing his own life and his own world and not being afraid to put it out there. What have you done for yourself lately and why are you waiting? Do it now.

The Desolation Angel
from somewhere halfway to Heaven, and just a mile out of Hell

You know someone like me, there's still a few of us left. If we have to, we'll stand at the gates of Hell and hold the last train home for you.. . . . . .