Category: politics

sometimes it’s tough

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It can be very difficult to get in the head of someone who thinks so much differently than yourself.

Sometimes, it’s worse when it’s someone with whom you should identify, but who you’ve written as having one particular characteristic that’s utterly opposite to your own.

Like, say, a highly liberal man who finds sex disgusting.

Versus, say, me, also quite liberal, but lacks many boundaries. There are no off-limit topics to me.

I have boundaries, but I refuse to censor my life; I may not like the horrors (and perceived horrors which aren’t actually horrors) of the modern world, but I’ll not ignore their reality.

It’s hard for those of us who have spent a lifetime being comfortable wallowing in the dirt to relate to Howard Hughes.

Fear of dirt is as great a fear as any, and if what we all suspect is coming (Trump’s apocalypse) actually comes, well, then, we all better get a lot more used to it.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1460 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Born For This, Chris Guillebeau (I want to like the guy, but there's something just... missing in his style.  It's 'non-conformist', but in the most vanilla manner possible, at least in presentation, which makes even his good ideas a bland read.  Plus, it gets a bit repetitive; how many examples can you give without concrete directions or concepts that go beyond the barest of bones, borderlining platitude?  Ugh, some colour, some fire, man.  I wonder if he regrets using Thiel and Musk as examples, the way I would hope Tony Robbins regrets using just about everyone he's used, particularly Donald Trump.)
Comics: Bloodstrike 5-6, Brigade v2 5, Team Youngblood 3
Music: Which Side Are You On?, Anti-Flag

reconciliation

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I would like to reconcile a lot of things; the question is, how?

Our pasts, personal and ancestral are littered with misdoings and tragedies.

How do we move on? Will we ever reach a point where we can be forgiven?

I’m not sure how to answer that. On one hand, I don’t want to spend my life feeling guilty for things I haven’t personally done, or heartbroken because of the sins of a world past my control.

On the other hand, we can’t just ignore it.

We have to level the playing field, I think.

No more classes; no more bigotry.

When that’s gone, I guess we can lose the last vestiges of shame and guilt and move on to joy and union.

So, a few million years ought to suffice. Where there are people, there will be abuse.

I think the trick is not to blanket the earth in order to deny the sun to the weeds.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1238 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Born For This, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Image 0, Brigade v2 4, Team Youngblood 2, Bloodstrike 4
Music: Where You Been, Dinosaur Jr.

in the weeds now

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I mean, I’m working harder than ever, and tomorrow’s a holiday, so we can sit and think about what we’ve done, which admittedly, is a weird reason for a holiday, and I’m not sure it’s tangible help to native communities, but here we are.

It’s probably better to ask them than me, but I suspect the answer is that we’re not doing enough to reconcile the sins of past with creating a better future for the indigenous.

In any case, not to make light, but I’ve spent the last fifty minutes trying to have a character explain why he’s still consider liberal if he’s opposed to butt stuff.

It’s a hygiene thing, not a commentary on homosexuality.

(The character, not me. You get your freak on, boys and girls. As long as it’s consensual and doesn’t involve children, animals or those not capable of making that decision, then you get on getting on.)

Anyway, life’s weird and horrible things that require solemnity often overlap with the absurd.

I think we’d die if we had to take it all so seriously (which ironically, sums out how we got to our current edge-of-Armageddon political apocalypse). We all got too sensitive, hunkered down, doubled down, doubled down again and instead of letting shit go a little and talking it out, we’re about to have a civil war a hundred kilometres or so to the south of us.

Lighten up, jerks. Drop the militants, and get back to using your words.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1249 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Born For This, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Brigade v2 0, 3, Team Youngblood 1, Bloodstrike 4
Music: Where The Fuck Is The Revolution?, Closet Monster

and caught up

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So many distractions. So little time.

If only life weren’t so filled with insanity.

Why must we be so insane?

Who lives simply?

Can I move there?

Would they let me?

Or would I merely be a refugee, a symptom of the disease of modern living that consumed us all?

I suspect turnabout is fair play.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1507 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Last American Vampire, Seth Grahame-Smith
Comics: Youngblood 1-3, Brigade 1 (jesus, Liefeld is a garbage writer)
Music: When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts He Thinks Like A King..., Fiona Apple (all time favourite female artist?  Very well could be, though I'm also big on Bjork, PJ Harvey, L7 and Veruca Salt)

what i really meant to say

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Is ‘greetings, fellow overloads’. I look forward to serving you on this planet.

Good lord, wouldn’t it be nice if some aliens showed up and went, dummies.

This is how you transcend your planet.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 930 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Sylvie And Bruno Concluded, Lewis Carroll
Comics: Tomb Raider v3 7-10
Music: Wheels, Foo Fighters

what i meant to say

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Honestly, yes, we have to push back against fascists, but what I really meant was we need to find a way to see that all this dichotomy bullshit is just a way for the rich to keep us focused on bullshit, on hating each other, instead of going after the only enemy that matters.

I’ll give you a hint – the words used to describe them usually ends in -illionaires.

Keep focus, no matter where you are on the spectrum.

The enemy is the 0.01%.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 621 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Sylvie And Bruno Concluded, Lewis Carroll
Comics: Tomb Raider v3 3-6
Music: Wheatus, Wheatus

polarization

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I think the whole thing I’m trying to do with this Bad Neighbours thing is to really explore how absurd the political dichotomy is, and how destructive.

I’m not exploring a third option, and the crazier the right gets, there becomes an increasing need to draw that hard line and say, no.

No more.

No further.

Enough.

And then push back the other way until sanity is restored. The problem is, the rhetoric on that side, so willingly and completely divorced from any kind of reality or genuity, is almost impossible to engage on a conversational level. You can’t argue the points, because they don’t care to listen, and won’t respond in good faith.

There is no argument that will stop this anymore. We need to convince ourselves to take action, whatever action we can, procedural, legal, etc., in order to slow this monster down enough to make it to elections, which at this point, is a question of whether they’ll even happen or whether these fascists will try to find an excuse to suspend them or rig them, because they know in any even remotely just system, they’ll get blown from the water, and then, they’re all fucked.

Basically, every obstruction that can be made, every inch fought for; give up nothing without extreme cost. Make them feel it. Wear them down; they’ve shown a great deal of incompetency.

They will make exploitable mistakes.

Use the bureaucracy against them, especially since you can no longer trust the Supreme Court, and every block at a lower level just gets pushed up to the shadow docket. Plus, even when the court rules against them, they just ignore it and do it anyway.

So, block, obstruct, don’t make it easy. Make them work for every inch, make every yard a Herculean effort.

It’s the only way.

Push back, push back, push back.

And when it’s all said and done, and the extremists have fallen by the wayside, then maybe we can get back to ending the dichotomy.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1313 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Sylvie And Bruno Concluded, Lewis Carroll (god, this is shit)
Comics: Lara Croft And The Frozen Omen 4-5, Tomb Raider v3 1-2
Music: Whatever Happened To P.J. Soles?, Local H (quite possible the most underrated one hit wonder ever)

also

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It’s a fact that I’m not technically allowed to watch Bruce Lee movies, in that I get kind of hyped up and destroy college apartments.

But damn, man. So good. He beat up Jackie Chan and broke Chuck Norris’ neck (Chuck, who had a good thing going until he came out MAGA and now, no one thinks he’s invincible; he’s just another asshole).

Anyway, I should probably clean this mess up.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1699 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Sloppy Seconds, Tucker Max (somehow even stupider than the other ones)
Comics: Tomb Raider v2 18, Lara Croft And The Frozen Omen 1-3
Music: What Hits!, Red Hot Chili Peppers

rounding down

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I honestly don’t know where to go from here. The situation in the States gets worse and worse; they don’t even pretend to care about reality or facts anymore. They just spout lies.

How long before they just start murdering their opponents? I mean, Virginia Guiffre did not die of suicide – that’s bullshit.

They’re already doing it. The question is, how long before they just fake some charges and start doing it against the people they really want to do it to – senators and governors and journalists and such.

Someone hide AOC.

You know it’s where they’re headed – there will be no election in 2026. Not if they can help it.

You know if there is, and it’s not just a total scam, they’d get blown right the fuck out of office.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1086 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Sloppy Seconds, Tucker Max (nascent right wing culture, right here)
Comics: Tomb Raider v2 6-9
Music: A Western Harvest Field By Moonlight, Beck