Pay attention dear readers - goddammit!
Sure - you've all got busy lives. You're middle-class, somewhat or very, comfortable - long work days - whos got time? Or maybe you've just thrown in the towel completely and just do not give a rat's sphincter about this Trump/Russia stuff. Why should you give a damn about the political clown show in your nation's capital? Amiright?
Well -- allow The Gadfly to refer you to a fellow blogger's devastatingly astute post to explain something to you on that subject . . . here's an excerpt:
Just ignore him.
Just ignore the most powerful man in the world.
Just ignore the guy sitting on a nuclear arsenal large enough to kill every living thing on the planet and render the earth uninhabitable forever.
Just ignore the guy at the head of the largest, most powerful coalition of economic, political, and military power in not only the world, but in the entire history of the human race.
Just ignore the guy who controls nearly all aspects of the world that I’ll be leaving to my son and his new wife. My grandkids. The future. Sure, let’s just ignore that guy.
Trump has direct influence over all aspects of our society, economic, social, education, military, infrastructure, law and order, technology, the environment, labor, business, commerce, poverty, healthcare, growth, war, trade, our basic rights and freedoms, and you want me to just ignore him?
Just … ignore him?
Because, what? Maybe he’ll go away? Maybe he’ll, I dunno, go away to wherever unicorns go.
The absolutely worst, most useless, advice I ever got as a kid was being told to just ignore the bullies. Ignore them, right? Because that’s what they want, attention. And if you ignore them, they’ll just go away. Puff. Magic.
You know what? That’s wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. No bully has ever just gone away because their victims ignore them.
When the abuser has all the power, you can’t ignore them – especially when they’re smashing your face in.
Ignoring fascism is how you get more fascism.
Ignoring hate is how you get more hate.
Ignoring abuse is how you get abused.
It is time to stop this magical thinking on both sides of the political divide and face reality.
Trump isn’t going to get better.
Trump isn’t going to go away.
Trump isn’t going to just one day wake up and decide to act like a president.
He’s not suddenly going to start acting like a rational adult.
He’s not going to be magically imbued with 70 years of education and knowledge and experience in how to run government.
Your indifferent god isn’t going to reach down and fill Trump’s fluffy head with wisdom and compassion and selflessness. This isn’t a made for TV movie, Trump isn’t going to have some life-changing moment and realize what an ass he’s been and then devote the rest of his life to making the world a better place. That’s not going to happen.
There are no such things as unicorns.
And . . .
His supporters point to his supposed wealth as evidence of leadership, of vision, of intellect. And that’s nonsense. Trump is, at best, a mediocre businessman. He was born rich and given breaks most people don’t get, those things provide a safety net for mistakes and failures that ruin others less advantaged. Those things gave Trump the ability to take risks others can’t. It wasn’t his smarts or his supposed deal making or some magical unicorn dust, it was privilege. He didn’t create his empire from nothing, he built it on a foundation of wealth and advantage and other people’s money.
Trump’s privilege and wealth are luck of birth, not evidence of superiority.
Trump’s mythical ability to make a deal is exactly that, a myth. Bullshit. Smoke and mirrors. Something he uses to con the rubes. Trump can’t make a deal unless he has everything stacked in his favor and he calls all the shots and nobody else gets to say anything. And while that nonsense might work for you when you’re building a casino in Jersey (or not), it sure as shit doesn’t work out in the real world between nations and any fool could have told you that. And did. Repeatedly.
Bluster and bombast and billions are no substitute for intellect, education, experience, quiet courage, and steady confidence under fire.
http://www.stonekettle.com/2017/08/the-later-days-of-better-nation-part-iv.html
Go read the whole thing. It's right on the money as far as The Gadfly is concerned.
----TFG
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