Monday, June 23, 2014

Me and Kati (18): Tired of the BS

Kati, I ran into our friend Alonzo (not his real name) a few days ago. He is about to retire. Alonzo is about the only person that has read this blog regularly since its beginning ten years ago. He might not have been so devoted in the past year or so as I have ceased to write it except intermittently. In any case he informed me he will not be reading it any longer as he is going to give up the internet upon his retirement. Alonzo is a very intelligent man, he gave up watching television twelve years ago, recognizing what an utter wasteland it has become, and now he feels the same way about the internet. The overuse of commercials is one reason he gave up television, along, of course, with its obsessive concern with providing “infotainment.” The internet is presently going the same route with far too many commercials and increasingly insipid content. In short, Alonzo is tired of bullshit.

Kati, I find myself in the same frame of mind. The commercials are insulting enough but the incidental bullshit that accompanies them is worse. We no longer get any real news, just reports of what our MSM think we should hear, and it is invariably bullshit, bullshit from top to bottom. Nothing we are told about Ukraine, Russia, and Putin is accurate as the current problems there are entirely of our own, NATO, and the UK’s making. Our criminal enterprise along with Israel, at the Palestinian’s expense, is shameful, but of course a brutal, racist, Israel can do no wrong (and who cares about the Palestinians anyway). The terrible crisis in Iraq is again a result of our own stupid, illegal, and unconstitutional destruction of that country. To hear John Kerry talk about it is enough to make you gag: “we expended billions of dollars and American lives to give Iraq a chance to become a democratic country,” and blah, blah, blah, all bullshit (I believe Kerry may be our worst Secretary of State ever).

Our Sublime Court tells us that money is speech and corporations are persons and the MSM lets them go unchallenged on this unadulterated bullshit. The Koch brothers with their absolutely obscene wealth are blatantly trying to buy the United States and the media and Congress approves while at the same time trying to penalize the poor. I swear, Kati, our world has become nothing but constant unremitting bullshit.
I wish I had Alonzo’s intelligence and strength of character. I know I should give up television as an absolute wasteland of insulting commercials, insulting shows, and insipid content. I know the internet is being taken over by commercials and nonsensical content, and may be on the way to becoming even worse. I know I should ignore the mountains of bullshit that will come our way between now and November, 2014 and 2016, I know there is no truth anywhere anymore, that the candidates are picked for what they will do for the obscenely wealthy and corporations, that there is really little difference between them, that our democracy is a farce, that our foreign policy is based on greed and exploitation, and I also know that no matter who is elected to office in Congress or the White House will truly make much of a difference.

But Kati, this is our world, the world we now live in, the only world we have. The choice is clear although neither pleasant nor practical. To paraphrase one of the worst human beings ever, clearly in the Cheney category, Donald Rumsfeld, “We have to live in the world we have, not the world we would like to have.” Great advice from one of the world’s greatest  bullshitters ever. So, my darling Kati, what do we do? We could move farther North, find a great hole in the ground, pull a rock over our heads and ignore the world, or we can continue living in the phony world of absolutely unremitting bullshit that surrounds and mocks us now on a daily basis. Do not forget Kati, we will soon have another attempt to vote for either tweeldee or tweeldum, probably Hillary Clinton or Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, or whomever. A completely irrelevant exercise proving there are suckers born every minute and two or more politicians to “take them.”

 “Powerlessness is an excruciating pain; it is torture insurmountable.” 


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