Getting a late start on this. I had to turn the TV off – MSNBC was showing the ass-clown Trump again. Beats the hell out of me why they feel compelled to give the man so much free airtime, but there you go. In any case, Iowa votes, in a manner of speaking, next week and Trump may walk away with his first big victory … or not. Can’t say that I care which of those strange political objects receive the enthusiastic endorsement of some of corn country’s biggest bigots. It’s basically the same general deal with any one of the Republicans. They like to pretend not – that there are moderates and more serious candidates as well as the extremists and the very silly alternatives – but that’s a lot of gas. They’re all a major threat to peace and prosperity; just listen to them.
Who’s the moderate in that race? Christie? Don’t say Christie. He’s vehemently anti choice, wants to provoke war with Russia, and has all the racial sensitivity of Nixon during his drunk period (to say nothing of being a shill for the Peterson Institute, which advocates for privatizing Social Security). Forget Jeb Bush. He’s easily as bad as his brother on the issues, only with less raw political talent. Rubio? He’s the bold “young” candidate who seems to have his head stuck in decades-old Cold War strategy like a bug in amber. Frankly, any one of these candidates would be an unmitigated disaster as president.
How about the other side? I’m a bit agnostic with regard to that, as well. Of course I support Bernie Sanders – he’s certainly the closest the Democratic Party has ever come to someone I can agree with. But a Bernie presidency would only work if it came in ahead of a vociferous mass movement for positive, progressive change. That takes work, way beyond just getting out to vote. I’ll vote for Bernie and encourage others to do the same, but unless we march into Washington on his inauguration day with him on our shoulders, it’s not going to amount to much more than a mild braking action on the downward spiral of American capitalism. Which, come to think of it, is Hilary Clinton’s platform in a nutshell. Saving capitalism from itself, as she puts it. All well and good, but who the hell is going to save us from capitalism?
I’ll tell you who: Nobody but us.
luv u,
jp
Yeah, we’ve known about that planet for years. Mitch discovered it on one of our interstellar tours, and he was so thrilled at his own cleverness that he resolved to keep it secret from humanity until he could find some practical use for it. It is, in scientific terms, a big motherfucker, with enough mass to line up all the other planets in our puny solar system like billiard balls. (I think that played into Mitch’s plan for the dark world beyond Neptune. He dreamed of racking them all up like nineball and running the table, as if he was the Minnesota Fats of interplanetary collision.)
I won’t run through the particulars of the story. For that, I suggest you listen to the podcast. Suffice to say that Bergdahl suffered grievously over his five years as a guest of the Taliban. He attempted to escape several times, once for as long as nine days, escaping barefoot into the Hindu Kush, injuring himself severely, eating grass, etc. He was beaten badly, cut with razors, kept in a cage not fit for a chimp, threatened with beheading – you name it. He was the first P.O.W. held for anything like this long since the Vietnam War, and under conditions that rival any horror stories from that conflict. Frankly, it’s a testament to his physical and mental strength that he survived.