boringpolitik

[boringpolitik]

another long dark road up ahead think of all the awful possibilities all the future catastrophes i'll just beg the universe to let me be desperate for it to be lenient, to go easy on me it or anyone or everyone or no one just doesn't care there's fear and death and violence and despair we want to break away and be free and breathe free but oppressors and systemic breakdowns everywhere we've been lied to and told to praise equality it's stolen in tiny pieces and nobody notices nobody cares, the world is on fire and why bother we're going to slaughter, torture our daughter our father no order is on offer, the horror of the richest clearing our coffers it is a dark road up ahead

[boringpolitik]

things stop working the way they are supposed to work when things get really really big, or really really small.

mechanics is a great example. really small things, like atomic nuclei and quarks and what not, do not behave like baseballs. they have different rules. and when things get really big, like on an galactic scale, things start behaving strangely. it’s all that dark matter. or dark energy. whatever it is, it changes the way we see the universe. or more succinctly, it changes the way the universe behaves. 

we should try changing too. small societies have different rules from big ones. it’s not like we’ve figured out the best way to govern a society, but we’ve got lots of experimental data on the subject.

not sure i have a point here...

oh yeah, capitalism. that shit breaks down at large scales. there are three people in this country who own more money than the poorest half of the country combined. those three people have more money than about 163 million people.

that sounds... egregious? not right? out of fucking control?

the concern isn’t: what does one person do with that much money?

the concern is: how do those millions of people get by? do they get by?

in lots of cases, no. because children are homeless in america. about 1.5 million (some estimates are higher, some lower). 

there are citizens who work jobs and are still on welfare. still have to use food stamps to feed their kids. they work at amazon. the man who owns amazon is not only a billionaire, but his net worth is 150 billion dollars.

at what point do we start blaming the country’s billionaires for all of the starving children in our country?

i say now. now is that point.

billionaires and capitalism are the oppressor. we, the people, are the oppressed.

capitalism, at large scales, does not work. 

the simplest solution: tax the fuck out of billionaires. they are currently not getting taxed at all. 99% of the country pays a higher tax rate than billionaires. that upsets me. i want to know why and i want to know who i can vote for who will change that. the increased taxes will pay for healthcare, social services, utilities, infrastructure, and every other thing that makes a community, a society, a country, strong.

[boringpolitik]

some people who think we are headed towards a war in the united states, but the truth is, it’s already being fought.

when someone with a gun or knife or a car goes on a rampage, that is an attack. but that’s only the first part of the attack. the next battle happens on fb and twitter and infowars and fox. it’s the subtle but always there support for the terrorist. even if someone just mentions the name of the shooter, it’s subtly showing support. giving their backing, if not their blessing.

but it goes beyond that. people are defending killings. dehumanizing the victims. justifying murder in the name of racism, xenophobia, and politics.

once there’s an attack, the online battle begins. people rush in to shout “false flag” or “crisis actor.” and then the justifications are made. “he was probably tired of illegals taking our jobs...,” et fucking cetera.

the ones who make these arguments are fighting a battle to normalize this kind of insane rhetoric. and once you’ve got that rhetoric embedded into your brain--blasted into your ears and eyes 24 hours a day--then it becomes normal for you to express it in the real world. and that’s how more soldiers are brought into the fold. expressing these rancid and toxic ideas in public is itself an attack. just another battle while we sit idly by.

the war is raging, but only a small percentage of americans know that it’s happening. and here we sit: the majority. complacent in our hope that we can solve this civilly. and while we wait for the battle lines to be drawn, the enemy is already taking lives and turning hearts to their cause. civilly.

i don’t know if it’s too late, but we may have already lost a war that we didn’t even know had started yet.

[boringpolitik]

when i was 12 i learned that when your eyes were engaged in reading or writing or watching something, you perceive that time moves more quickly. so at times when i was bored i started moving my eyes back and forth, as rapidly as i could. staring at nothing a few feet in front of me. just twitching those eyeballs. hoping that i could change how i was experiencing time. 

did it work? 

i don’t know. 

but now, 25 years later, i suffer from some weird inner-ear imbalance that makes me feel dizzy most of the day and that causes my eyes to twitch uncontrollably. it’s like vertigo but for idiots who imagine that life hacks will save them from tedium of real life. well, guess what idiot? now your perception of time is infused with constant bouts of dizziness and nausea. 

great job.

[boringpolitik]

the whole idea of the devil as a trickster agent really throws a monkey wrench into the idea of good and purity and sin.

if we accept that the devil can trick you into sin, then we have to accept that god will now see you as a sinner, even though your intentions were pure. god has no idea what is happening on earth. all of the devil’s machinations are a complete mystery to god.

fuck you god, you idiot. didn’t you see that the devil tricked me into eating all those old people? he told me that for every one i ate, a baby angel got reunited with their baby angel daddy.

no. god didn’t see that. and he doesn’t believe you. he’s pretty sure you’re trying to trick him now and that you’re actually the devil. so to hell with you.

so you’re now the devil and everyone’s the devil and god is so paranoid because he is alone in heaven. he’s been alone for so long. there’s no one to talk to. there’s no one good enough to come into heaven to sit at his side.

god is a paranoid hermit who lives in the hills of Montana and who never goes outside and who never checks on what is happening outside of his shack.

if the devil can trick one of us, then he can trick all of us. and it’s so easy that he does trick all of us.and therefore, nobody gets in to heaven. 

ever.

[boringpolitik]

i’m pretty sure these prescription drugs i’m taking were mined from an ancient asteroid and contain some virus from the prehistory of another civilization.

#braindrugs

[boringpolitik]

it’s insane to think that we can’t even all agree that feeding starving children is the right thing to do.

fuck you capitalists.

fuck you fascists.

fuck you society for letting children starve to death.

[boringpolitik]

i just happened to come across a story online written by the daughter of someone who survived the Bosnian genocide. she was a Muslim woman who lived a secular lifestyle but when the government started with its hateful rhetoric, her friends became her enemies and she quickly started fearing for her and her family’s safety. she fled with her children as refugees but many of her family were killed or are lost.

then at my gym this morning arcade fire’s neon bible was playing on repeat and it made me think that the entire album is a warning against rising tides and fighting back against things we know are wrong but cannot seem to fight back against. it makes us feel so helpless, so clueless, so rudderless. being pushed this way and that by social media and popular culture and the news and twitter and a hundred other bright boxes on our phone screens. sometimes music can make you realize how horrible things really can be. and i felt terrible and useless and fragile.

humans are so horrible to each other. they’re especially horrible to the ones who they don’t have to speak to or look into the eyes of.

it seems likely that we (humans) are not going to be ok.

[boringpolitik]

the irony of fear is that when it manifests as caution, it can save our lives. but in the long run, fear manifests as anxiety, depression, and anger, which tears down the immune system and our physical health -- leading to heart disease, obesity, and hypertension.

like heroin, fear is probably best taken in very small and infrequent doses.

[boringpolitik]

some people say that Mr. Trump is thin-skinned, which I think is a misleading accusation, because I think, like most Americans, he just wants to be right. 

aren’t we obsessed with being right? is there anything better than saying, “I told you so” or “I was right”?

we’re afraid of being wrong. if you’re wrong, everyone will say you’re dumb or racist or worse. at least that’s what we tell ourselves. but the truth is, people are not so terribly mean and unfair once you break down the wall of fear they put up around themselves.

don’t misunderstand: this isn’t an admonishment of “PC culture,” a made up phrase that puts your opponent on the defensive to discredit their legitimate concerns without actually making a valid point. it’s a buzz word created by politicians to excite the people they are suppose to represent faithfully -- but instead, they use language like this to confuse people, making them angry at heretofore unseen enemies.

this is a reminder that we’re all scared in some way. and somehow a lot of Americans have become even more scared lately. a lot of citizens who see the world changing too fast. as it was in the past, it is now. old men are clinging onto power while the younger generation rises up.

[boringpolitik]

imagine a person who was suffering but they didn’t know they were suffering. how would they even know that there was a problem? maybe they’d feel like shit. people around them might be dying and hurting. they may be struggling with drinking or pills or suicidal thoughts. they need help but no one is helping. they are suffering and no one cares. they can’t ask for help because they don’t know. they don’t even know how to ask for help. it’s not a valid problem. they’ve been told to just deal with it. but when your nephew overdoses on heroin and there’s a meth lab in your neighbor’s garage, just dealing with it is just going to make things worse. it’s going to boil your insides until there are claw marks on the inside of your brain. there is no peace and there is no hiding without healing.

this is america right now and it’s killing us.

if this was you, would you do anything you could to try and change things?

[boringpolitik]

the world is just a machine that takes in humans and spits out money.

[boringpolitik]

people aren’t to blame. they are basically good and honest and hard-working. but people will fight back if you push them. it’s the same if they are convinced that they are being pushed. the media keeps telling us who is pushing who. it’s propaganda and it’s gaslighting.

the propaganda says you are being pushed and the propaganda says who is doing it and the propaganda taunts you and teases “why are you not doing anything about this?”

[boringpolitik]

the true purpose of never-ending election season: finding out your a nihilist

[boringpolitik]

sometimes i can feel the anger of generations course through my veins. as if years and years and years have done nothing to quell the vitriol that one person experiences through their lifetime. in fact it is passed on to the sons and daughters and nieces and nephews and cousins. and it just builds. and grows. and mutates from a simple resentment into a full-blown hatred of everything and everyone. and then it is passed on--in all its glory--to the next generation. and then the next. and it never ends and it’s never resolved. the only solution--the way to save mankind from its ingrown and homegrown hatred--is to let it all go. just let the universe run all over you and bathe in the suffering that it gives. suffering is suffering, but suffering with the knowledge that there is no freedom from suffering, is freedom.

[boringpolitik]

the choices we’re given in politics include options that we’re not suppose to choose. 

the people sometimes surprise the politics and go ahead and choose the worst possible choice though... just out of spite. just because they’ve been ignored and taken advantage of for too long.

despite all that, the terrible choice still has terrible consequences.

[boringpolitik]

in 2016 the world’s most powerful politicians would like you to carefully consider which brand of biscuit they are loyal to.