Listen To Jimmy

 

"When the rabbit screams, the FOX comes runnin' but not to help."

~Thomas Harris

The Silence Of The Lambs

I'm exhausted, and really, what more could I possibly add?

With 410 Days To Go... Are You Any Better Off?

 

Some thoughts... 

 

“Decades ago, George Orwell suggested that the best one-word description of a Fascist was “bully,” and on the day of the Normandy invasion, Franklin Roosevelt prayed to the Almighty for a “peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men.” By contrast, President Trump’s eyes light up when strongmen steamroll opposition, brush aside legal constraints, ignore criticism, and do whatever it takes to get their way."

     
~Madeleine K. Albright,

 Fascism: A Warning

“Do not obey in advance.

Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”

 
~Timothy Snyder

  On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

“If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.”

 
~Hannah Arendt

“Social conservatism and neoconservatism have revived authoritarian conservatism, and not for the better of conservatism or American democracy. True conservatism is cautious and prudent. Authoritarianism is rash and radical. American democracy has benefited from true conservatism, but authoritarianism offers potentially serious trouble for any democracy.” 

~John W. Dean,

  Conservatives Without Conscience

 

“[No] social principle in the world is more foolish and dangerous than the rapidly rising notion that hurtful words and ideas are a form of violence or torture (e.g., “harassment”) and that their perpetrators should be treated accordingly. That notion leads to the criminalization of criticism and the empowerment of authorities to regulate it. The new sensitivity is the old authoritarianism in disguise, and it is just as noxious.”

 
~Jonathan Rauch,

  Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought  

 

 “The authoritarian character worships the past. What has been, will eternally be. To wish or to work for something that has not yet been before is crime or madness. The miracle of creation—and creation is always a miracle—is outside of his range of emotional experience.”
 

~Erich Fromm,

        Escape from Freedom

 

“Flattery is directly proportional to authoritarianism. For this reason, flattery can be said to be one of the main signs of the non-existence of freedom and democracy in the political system. The more "honeyed words", the greater the deprivation of personal liberty.”

 
~Elmar Hussein  

 

  “Democracy can exist only in the countries where people are brave! Coward nations always live under the authoritarian regimes!”

 
~Mehmet Murat ildan 

 

 “Patriotism is a villain's last refuge.”

 

 ~Xiaobo Liu,

  June Fourth Elegies

 

 “One need only to admit that public tranquillity is in danger and any action finds a justification. All the horrors of the reign of terror were based only on solicitude for public tranquillity.”
 

~Leo Tolstoy, 

  War and Peace

 

 “Who is watching the Watchers?”

 
~James Hauenstein  

 

There are 410 days left until the 2026 midterm elections. 

 

Are you any better off then you were 4 years ago?

Are you any better off then you were 4 weeks ago?

Are you any better off then you were 4 days ago?

Are you any better off then you were 4 hours ago?

Are you any better off then you were 4 minutes ago?

Are you any better off then you were 4 seconds ago? 

 

VOTE

 

 

So This Happened...

 “If liberty means anything at all,

 it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” 

― George Orwell

 

 “If freedom of speech is taken away,

 then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” 

― George Washington 

 

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."

[Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950]”

 
― Harry S. Truman  

 

“This is slavery, not to speak one's thought.”
― Euripides,

  The Phoenician Women  

 

We are in a very dark time. President Asshole is not going to be happy until he ruins every corner of our lives. Every single day some nightmare, courtesy of Trump, will happen, sometimes several times a day, sometimes hourly. He is a petty little asshole, who is leaving my nerves fried. Culture and the arts is so important to the psyche, and the soul, and the well being that I worry about someone who just can't take it anymore, acting out. When folks reach the deepest points of despair, they fall to the principles of fight or flight. They express their feeling by hurting others in the attempt to make them feel their level of pain, or they turn it all inside, ultimately harming themselves. I am neither of those things. I am numb. Intellectually I know it's bad, but I don't feel panic anymore. Still, I get tired. Some days all I want to do is sleep, but when I am awake I am ready for the fight of just absorbing it all. 

 

 

 

WE MUST GET UP, AND FIGHT BACK!

Like The Caine Mutiny Without The Ball Bearings

 

The true measure of a man is how he handles adversity.

 

 ~The Caine Mutiny

 

Jimmy Kimmel, and the Academy Awards, is what the Don Snorelone has to worry about at 7:18 AM, on the only day he has off from his current criminal trial? That tweet reminds me of the final scene of the Caine Mutiny, where it becomes painfully apparent to everyone that Captain Queeg that is indeed fucking NUTS. Sorry... mentally ill. Donald Trump needs help. As someone who has had to face depression my whole life, I know of what I speak. He needs help. Take this tweet alone, he lashes out over the Academy Awards, why now? It happened over a month ago. The ratings were not bad, in fact they gained 4% over the previous year's telecast.

 

 By the way, it wasn't Jimmy Kimmel who handed out the Oscar for Best Film, it was Al Pacino. And the"Winner is" was changed years ago to, "And The Oscar Goes To." Maybe he should be sleeping, or strategizing with his legal teem, or perhaps planning whatever he has mind for his campaign. Anything other than barking at the moon. I expect as we move alone, and things seem to be moving fast, he will demonstrate more and more that he needs help! He will have his Captain Queeg moment, and like in the Caine Mutiny, he will have folks continue to support him, while not realizing the hurt they are doing to him. The hurt they are doing to all of us.

If you have never seen the Caine Mutiny, I encourage you to go watch it! It's my favorite Humphrey Bogart movie, and Fred MacMurray was amazing as well. 

I repeat, Donald Trump needs help.