So. They’ve acquitted the same President in his impeachment again. Second time around. If I could stomach the thought, I almost wish he could stay long enough to go for a trifecta of impeachment…and see if third time really is the charm. I don’t know if it would do any good, though; it would just give everyone more reason to focus on him. He’s a narcissist, so that would probably make him really happy, thinking of how everyone else is thinking of him, like he is thinking of himself. All the time. Every day of the week. Every month of the year. All year. I guess the only time he’s not thinking exclusively of himself is when he’s plotting revenge on someone else who wasn’t thinking exclusively of him, which I guess is still thinking about himself in a somewhat indirect way, but whatever. I think I would find it rather boring to be a narcissist, although I imagine the fantasy life could be quite impressive.
Anyhow, I used to believe that I suffered from some dire mental illness, one that is no doubt contained with lengthy description and diagnostic criteria in the mental health bible, the DSM. I think they’re up to the 5th or 6th edition of that now, but when I started contemplating my unique craziness, I believe they were still on the DSM 4. I really did believe that I was a multiple personality at one point, but I think I was just drinking too much. Then I believed I was a sociopath, or psychopath, and/or narcissist. I was told by a medical professional that narcissist in particular do not question or contemplate whether or not they are narcissistic. They presume they are quite normal and any problems they might have are the result of other folks’ inadequacies or competition. They never question their walk or their talk. I second guess myself so automatically, so I was told I could never qualify for that diagnosis. Oh, well. Rats – foiled again. I recently came in contact with something that holds promise for “figuring out” my challenging way of having relationships with people (the attachment disorder exploration from a few days ago), but at this point I would rather just be. A human being rather than a human doing.
Back to the rest of the world. We’re past this impeachment trial (like deja vu, of course) and on we go. So where are we going again? We didn’t know before that trial, and we still don’t really know. We have some immediate tasks, which is a good thing – get COVID relief for people who are going under for the 3rd time, if not more. Get the new administration firmly on its feet, including the DOJ and the Attorney General. Get the previous POTUS off our plates, off our television sets, off our minds. He loves the attention, so what do you say we not give it to him? We’ve got more important stuff to do. Like figure out how this insurrection really happened. Which of the watchers stopped watching? Who on the inside was holding open the doors? We need to know that. >
People are still wide-eyed to find out there were so many active duty military and law enforcement personnel taking part in that riot, but I am not at all surprised by that. Seeing that only brings more light to the claim of many marginalized communities that police cannot be trusted, that you only call the police as a last resort because you’re more afraid of them than somebody who just invaded your home. This is a function of what people have been saying for decades – there are two Americas. There’s the America that resembles the amber waves of grain and purple mountains’ majesty and manicured lawns and kids outside on bicycles and all that, and there’s the America that resembles run down tenement houses and project buildings and has a soundtrack of gunfire and sirens 24x7x365. In one America, you call the police for just about everything, including when one of your kids mouths off at you or comes home with a joint in his pocket. You call the police when somebody is parked blocking your driveway. In the other America, you take care of all that stuff yourself – your kid mouths off? You can send them into next week with a friendly tap on the back of the head. They come home with a joint? You confiscate that and smoke it later, or hold it for them and maybe you smoke it with them. They only get punished for not sharing. Somebody parked across your driveway? They ain’t gonna be moving that car anytime soon with four flat tires. Even if there’s a personal crime in the projects, you think twice about calling the police. Do you want to risk getting into trouble yourself once you show ID? Do you want to get labeled a snitch or risk worse pushback from the person who is causing you a problem? And it goes on and on and on…the differences in how we live, the differences in how services are rendered. The police in some urban areas won’t even go into certain neighborhoods – they risk ambush, and sometimes find they are wasting their time because the compainant won’t follow through. It’s just a bloody mess, and the system just doesn’t work on so many levels. Ugh. Sadly, we actually have bigger issues to resolve before getting to criminal justice reform.
I was listening to some coverage of the COVID response, and the vaccine distribution. There are two vaccines, and they are desperately trying to get those out to as many places as they can. Some people are still hesitant to be vaccinated; a friend of mi ne just told me she’s “just goint to wait”. I can’t say I blame her to be a little hesitant, although I’m not entirely sure on what her hesitancy is based. Some people are afraid of unexpected side effects, others are all-out paranoid and believe there could be some tracking nano-technology inserted into the receipient. That one is a little interesting…no, sorry – that is effing nuts. But, it’s out there, just like the ones that refuse to believe that innoculations for childhood diseases don’t give your kid autism. There’s no evidence to support that, just like there’s no evidence to support insertion of tracking technology when you receive the vaccine, but…bless their hearts, they’re out there. As far as I am concerned, they can stay out there. Over there…y’all stay over there…no…there….no, take a few more steps. Waaaaaay over there. Do whatever you want over there, just don’t come over here. I’ll wave at y’all from Walgreen’s when I get my shot. Have a nice day.
See, this is where I lose patience. Everybody wanted to defend the former POTUS about his inciting the attempted coup on January 6th, claiming that what he said was simply him exercising his right to free speech. Hm…got your law degree from Wal-Mart, didn’t you? OK, yes he has the right to free speech, but if what he says ultimately causes people to endanger other people, some of whom die, then free speech is left in the dirt. As in the oft-cited example of yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater, and there is no fire but the fear of fire causes a stampede that causes death of several people…the person yelling “Fire!” is liable. Had they not started warning people of an imminent danger, one that did not exist, there would have been no stampede and there would have been no deaths. Had the former POTUS not yelled about a stolen election, and people needed to fight or they would lose their country, the crowds of rabid insurgents would not have been there. If they were not there, nobody would have died on the Capitol grounds, nobody would have been injured there, and there would have been no feces in the hallway of the Capitol building. One would expect the POTUS to be held to a slightly higher standard of responsibility in things like this…and I wouldn’t think he would need that explaiend. But, these are strange times.
I think back on my growing up years, and remember that i had my rebellious moments, ok rebellious years, and I had those periods of resistance when no logic or reason would cause me to do a rational or sensible thing. If I had my heart set on something, my mind made up, and I really wanted it, it was very hard for anyone to knock me off that beam. When I was about 12, there was a musical group – The Ohio Players – and they had a Top 40 hit called “Rollercoaster”. The Rollercoaster of love. There was a point in the song where there were screams in the background of the music, emulating the typical screams of people on a rollercoaster, at an amusement park. There was also a story going round that someone had been murdered in the making of the recording, and those screams were the victim’s. This was totally false, but it became an urban myth, and adults could not persuade most of us adolescents that it wasn’t true. So, I understand how these urban myths can take on a life of their own, and how people cannot be deterred from them. I’ve been there. BUT I WAS 12. These Q-Anon people are adults, with driver’s licenses and credit cards and cars and … guns. Not the same thing AT ALL.
If I could just ignore all these loony tunes out there, I could live with that. Unfortunately, I can’t socially distance to that extreme. They are here, they are us, I am them. When the causes are the ones I support, have passion about, then it all seems a little different. To my credit, and the credit of most of my friends and like minded associates, I don’t resort to violence, don’t own automatic weapons, don’t make pipe bombs. I’m too old and lazy at this point to march long distances, but marching and carrying a sign is about as far as I’ll go to voice my dissent. I will write letters, make phone calls, sign online petitions, speak up at forums or meetings. The other thing about all that is…if I dissent, strongly dissent, I am disagreeing with something factual. I will disagree with a law, or a proposed law, or policy, or candidate…but I am pushing back on something that exists in the real world, even if that’s just someone else’s perspective. THese Q-Anon folks are pushing back at something that doesn’t exist. I can’t understand that. They are pushing against an “illegitimate election outcome”. OK, they believe the President did not legitimately win the election, and the previous President did. By a landslide, they say. OK…show me. Show me where that happened. They can’t produce any evidence of that, or of fraud that corrupted the results, or anything to give credence to their claims. The only way they can explain why their version of the election is true is…conspiracy theories. The evidence is not there because “the deep state” is making sure it stays hidden. OK, who is the deep state? Oh, you know who they are…the Clintons and Obama and this illegitmate guy in the White House now…and his monster Jezebel of a Vice-President. They are illegitimate!
Um, not to be a pain in the butt or anything, but…I’m just not seeing their point.
I’ve learned that people who are so irrationally biased in their viewpoint cannot be reasoned with. If they are going to abandon their Q-ness, it will be because they hit bottom in some way, if they are faced with facts that make it impossible to maintain their allegiance to the lies. I wonder if that’s why there were two suicides after the nsurrection…both were law enforcement, I believe. Maybe they found themselves face to face with a lie, and realized their complicity in something that appalled them, something that had risen up out of the depths of hell and killed people, nearly killed our country. Something they couldn’t believe was…them. I have no evidence of that, only my quirky empath brain, but it’s possible. Just like it’s possible that some of these so-called “patriots” are really the night-riders of days past, the fine upstanding Christians who happened to have a white hood and sheet at the ready for days like January 6. Simple, unaldulterated racists who definitely want THEIR country back, the one where they’re in charge and definitely very special, the one where Black and Brown people shine their shoes and cut their grass and bring their meals. That world. Where they make up all the rules, and other people have to live by them. That world, where all the balls go in the basket and they always hit a home run at the company baseball game. That world is a lie.
That world is actually a movie called “Pleasantville”, where two modern-day teenagers get mysteriously sucked into the tv-show world pf their favorite show, of the same name. In Pleasantville, every kid’s ball does go into the basket, and everything is pretty much perfect. All the time. It’s the same routine, the same everything, like in a magazine. Except for one thing. The show is in black and white…so everything in Pleasantville is black and white. No color. Everyone is stereotypical, and behaves accoding to script, and nothing goes wrong. Ever. Unfortunately for Pleasantville, however, these two kids from present-day have been deposited there, and they begin to change the dynamic. They introduce variables, like sex, and *gasp* feelings. The discover the books in the library are just book covers with blank pages, so they tell their classmates the real stories. When feelings begin to emerge on these folks, an amazing thing happens. They turn…colored. Literally. And then Pleasantville isn’t quite so pleasant any longer – there’s suddenly prejudice against “the coloreds” and discrimination and explicit bias and all kinds of nasty stuff. Just like in the present-day world those ‘alien’ kids came from. It’s a really interesting thought experiment.
The “Pleasantville” story comes to me when I think of these Q-Anon people, who are saying they want their country back, and they want things to be like they always were, back when they felt good about being American. Back when it was a lie, is how I see it. Yes, I’m sure it was quite pleasant for a lot of those folks who were shitting on the floor of the Capitol, and walking around with the House podium, but it was a lie. The only way that world could exist was by ignoring, denying, the reality other people were living. The only way they could get all their balls to drop in the hoop was to be the only ones playing. The only way they could get the best grades, all the time, no matter what subject, was to narrow the field of knowledge and learn the same thing by rote, every day, in every grade. But they couldn’t feel things, they couldn’t really be authentic, they couldn’t experience the full range of humanity. If they did, they couldn’t control all of the variables, and they just couldn’t have that. So, in a way, these folks have been numb for a really long time, because they haven’t seen reality. Now, they’re seeing it and waking up, and it’s painful. It’s so painful, like when you’ve been in the movie theater and the lights come on…it hurts for a few seconds until your eyes adjust. Eventually, you’re just fine. But if the lights are turned down again, your eyes won’t adjust. At some point, there will be more light and then you’ll have the pain, it just came later. That’s what’s happening with these Q folks…they’re being roused out of sleep, they’re numb, and it hurts to wake up. They want to be put back to sleep, but it’s just not possible. So they’re gonna fight. Fight for the right…to be numb. Fight for the right to sleep through life. I suppose that’s their right, but once again, I’d be fine with that if they just stayed…over there. Waaaaaaay overe there. Let the rest of us get on with something else if you don’t mind. I think we could work it out where we don’t bother you, and you don’t bother us. It’s a big enough planet, we might have to rearrange a couple of things, but it’s do-able. As a show of good will, I say we let you have the former POTUS free and clear. Again…just stay…over there.
The Sound Hole 