#have some Proactive Neville as an apology

[time-and-place]

😘 = a birthday kiss from Hannah :3

He’s pleased as punch and pink as a strawberry, and the Firewhiskey has made him bold. 

“I reckon we can do that again when it’s not my birthday, if you like.”

[haroldgross]

New Post has been published on Harold Gross: The 5a.m. Critic

New Post has been published on http://literaryends.com/hgblog/when-hyperbole-meets-axis/

When Hyperbole Meets Axis

I have spent the last 18 months forcing myself to find hope even during the most frustrating moments of this dark time. While I often stated unimaginably bad outcomes, I knew they were unlikely to come to pass. I recognized that there was little happening that could not be undone, despite how much I may disagree with the choices and events. Even the support of the so very un-American Travel Ban could be changed with the whisk of a pen come a new administration. But it was a necessary venting to stay calm and collected.

But then came this past week and the decision that it was just too burdensome to inform women in California that they weren’t getting complete information or healthcare, reversing the Reproductive FACT Act. And the Janus decision that is probably the eventual death nell of unions in this country while citing free speech as the salient issue. And supporting institutionalized racism in Texas. Again, all wrongheaded but ultimately reversible with elections and communal action. It was that thought that was a small way to feed oxygen to the pilot light of hope in my soul, but it was still there.

The final death of my ember of hope came with the retirement of Justice Kennedy, a divisive and confusing character but also at the fulcrum of the court. Now the most corrupt and dim President in history is going to get to appoint someone who will set the course of this country for the next 40-50 years and it is without question that he intends to swing the court far right. I will likely die before I see the damage undone. In fact, a generation or two will pass before America is a country that can proudly stand on the world stage again and not look like an idiot as they work to turn back the clock on social justice, equality, and rights 70-100 years. This country is already attempting to fully erode Roe v. Wade before Kennedy’s seat gets cold. And they have cause to expect that result. Keep in mind that even Ireland has legalized abortion. Ireland, who is more institutionally Christian than the US by far.

Consider that our current president has aligned himself with, and praised, some of the scariest dictators that are in power today: Philippines, North Korea, Russia. He admires these men and understands them, while at the same time he lambasts Canada. Canada for chrissakes, who apologies when air from their country disturbs the flight of any eagles on the border. And, of course, he happily gins up falsehoods on a daily basis to kidnap children from asylum seekers at the border, journalists being “enemies of the state” but won’t take responsibility for the violence and the erosion of democracy that causes, and won’t say a word about young men of color being shot in the back in Pittsburgh. 45 is a man who thinks white supremacists are good people, even as he stands on podiums and spuriously blames MS13 for wide-spread invasion and violence (but won’t take away anyone’s guns).

I want to believe there is a path to an outcome where we don’t roll back jurisprudence and society 100 years or more. I want to believe that in attempting that we won’t end up, at best, at each other’s throats and, at worse, in another Civil War. I want to believe that, but I no longer do. The unimaginable path in my darkest imaginations now touch down in reality rather than being obviously too outlandish. My hope has gone dark because I can no longer see a path out of this thorny forest unless we can hold back a vote on Kennedy’s seat till after the November election and sweep the control of congress back to something more center-left from its extreme-right agenda. Without both of those, we might as well begin goose-stepping now. Our version of Neville Chamberlain is not only craven and coward, he is proactive in his selling out of the country and greedily making money on it at the same time while we watch and remain impotent without the representation to stop him.