Time to Chill

A Year of Crazy

So I was minding my own business, trying to limp my way to life's finish line, and bang... as if I didn't have enough problems of my own we elected a "racist troll" to be our president, the democrat opposition decided to spend their time screaming about the fact that he's a racist troll so they can win the midterm elections so they can.... be in power again?... not suck as bad as a racist troll?... show how morally superior they are by electing a fill in inspiring rock star politician here  hand picked insider as president? How about a plan? For jobs? For the climate? For education? Nah, but we can be just like Republicans but not as mean. Speaking of the the Republicans, it seems they have used the cover provided by the "racist troll" we call President to effectively destroy the New Deal. Well pending the reconciliation of the house and the senate versions of the tax bill. In an unprecedented show of heavy lifting, gamesmanship, dishonesty and spite they will destroy the New Deal, the basic contract we have had with our government, then replace it with...wait for it...nothing. Almost 75 years of old people getting health care and small pensions, uppity minorities voting and expecting equal protection under the law, woman becoming a growing force in our workplaces, political life, and academia, all swept aside and replaced with...nothing. Come on Republicans, you've had 75 years of stewing about poor people getting food and shelter and middle-class people having health care and social security to think up something better and the best you can do is a massive tax cut to corporations supplemented with poison pills to destroy every entitlement programs that average folks have been paying into their whole working lives. Also as a cherry on top of 2017's shit sundae Nazis/racists are a thing again...What? I know PC culture is annoying, but our answer to a bunch of over excited collage freshman is to bring back Nazis? Don't get me started. Wait, wait, wait! I almost forgot, seems that we also have this problem with huge numbers of powerful men proving to be sexist assholes. Not a surprise...well maybe the shear number of assaults that involve masturbating is a little surprising...sure, like being a Nazis and dick picks, masturbation seems like something you would do in private, but it's good to be the king, right? Whoa, time to take a breath.

To be clear this does not prove there is a patriarchy so much as prove the world is full of assholes.

So why chill? If we soak up enough news it seems like we are collectively heading to hell in a hand basket. Psst... pick any day in history, look as long and hard as you can at all of the soul crushingly horrible things humans did to each other and you will find that we have been going to hell in a hand basket since Cain bashed in Ables head with a rock and God gave us a massive time-out so we could evolve into better people. That was 3 or 4 million years and a ton of evolving ago so  if we are going to hell in a hand basket we should either be there by now, or maybe, just maybe, we're on a completely different journey. I'm going out on a limb here, and I know I am luckier than most, but since in the last 24 hours I have had  hot and delicious pizza, ice cold beer, a relaxing hot shower, access to indoor toilets, Netflix+Hulu, a car that starts, ice cream (mmm... ice cream!), a well lighted clean health club to work off all those calories from all those goodies (1rst world problems much?)...I could go on but you see my point right?...not a hand basket.

...or at least a hand basket with fluffy kittens.

So why chill? Maybe Netflix does have "Stranger Things","Orange is the New Black", "Daredevil" and both endings to"How I met Your Mother"(I like the one where the Mom lives), but Bub! you just admitted that the world is a horrible place where our fellow citizens are ready to kill each other, our political parties have no vision, or worse their vision involves grinding us into paste, and the media comes at us hard with this stuff not to enlighten us or help us to answers but to sell beer and ice cream. Fair enough, but this is why you have to chill. Every moment of your lives you make choices about what happens next. So maybe you get pot roast instead of meat loaf for dinner, or you cuddle on the couch instead of having wild monkey sex in the shower, perhaps you finally give your corduroy suit to Goodwill (God I loved that suit), or maybe you reach a once in a lifetime crossroads and it's time to wrestle the Devil for his fiddle. This is that time(for the fiddle thing, I'm not giving up the suit).

No, no, no...time to chill, time to man up (or lady up if you must defy my gender stereotypes despite the fact that I'm old and I use "man up" for brevity because my old guy brain sees "man up" as a clear call to arms that should be understood as such across generations and not as a micro-aggression affirming the need to perpetuate the patriarchy at the expense of women... cis-up? human up? people up?...who am I kidding? "man-up" was just a lazy word choice, but this whole digression was a full blown aggression, micro is for wieners, against people that nitpick my lazy word choices to hijack my moral high ground despite the fact that we are on the same side), time to come together and redirect our reality in new and improved directions. (this entire paragraph was brought to you by the just chill and stop destroying easy targets on your own side coalition #just chill#word mistakes do not a monster make).

The amuck Nazis, the powerful men with their dicks out, the Dickensian meltdown of the Republican party, the morally bankrupt idea less Democratic party and yes our President the troll offer us a clear contrast, a laser like focus on the rot that has pervaded our country, our world, our lives. Sure it's scary that everything  happening on the news is a confusing jumble of policies, ideas, and habits that most of us find appalling, but it's better on the news, in the public eye, than the corridors of power or the smoke filled rooms at the good old boys club. The best way to get rid of rot and mildew is sunlight and 2017 was a nova above what is going wrong.

More cleaning power than every chemical Proctor and Gamble ever made.

The vast majority of us don't like Nazis, sexist assholes, gutless business as usual democrats, merciless compassion less thieving republicans, or our troll of a president. So now is when we choose. It's not going to be easy. We might not even be successful. The world has tumbled back into darkness many times in the past, but never before have the vermin infesting our society been exposed to so much light. That's why they are all fighting so hard, lying so much, ramming legislation through in the dark of night; they know that unless they shut off the lights they will be done. You think we're going to hell in a hand basket? I think it's time to beat the devil and play some sweet, sweet music because in the end we have the power.

Even the cosmos know we're here, we're worried about a few scurvy men?

By the way the special election in Alabama is happening today. "You mean  the election where Jesus freak, pedophile twice dismissed judge Roy Moore has a good chance of going to the Senate"? Yes I do. Plenty of sunshine on that one but it looks like it might not be enough. So what? Who said things were going to be easy? I said chill out and use the fact that the lights are on to make changes. Roy Moore is going to be the poster boy for the Republican party for years to come. The vast majority of Americans think he is vile. How's that going to work out for the Republicans? Maybe you get Alabama but what about all those purple states out there? Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada? Places your troll president squeezed to a victory in 2016? If the picture gallery includes a selfie of Roy Moore, a blow up of W's "mission accomplished" carrier photo op, a slide show of Trump being a horrible person maybe people start to "get" you. So maybe you independent voters can link up with the growing discontented democrat majority and the Republicans that still have a soul and we can win this thing, change this thing at least until the next thing. I do love God's sense of humor. Bone cancer is a laugh riot.

So? Even terrible things can? might? cause positive change. No promises, but there are more of us than there are of them. We can still make the world a better place, or at least have wild monkey sex in a corduroy suit after some fine pot roast.