Anti-immigration: Reaping the Whirlwind

Human migration has become my obsession, I guess. It is, I think, basically unstoppable, at least in the long term. Walls, incarcerations, deportations, exterminations, etc., can, of course, TEMPORARILY and UNEVENLY arrest mass movements of humans. But over time, the walls will be breached and the posses outrun. Human beings are hard-wired to seek the best conditions available, and thus they are willing to take considerable risks to acquire them. Over time, they will figure out ways to get in and settle down. 

IMO , therefore , the existing populations of places chosen by migrants (fortunate countries like the U.S.) can best serve their OWN interests by accepting and ASSIMILATING new arrivals ( provided , of course, these arrivals have no malicious intent to exterminate, expel or somehow endanger the natives—i.e., orchestrated conquest is not involved). Otherwise, needless, inexcusable, human suffering is likely to result, merely because devotees of two primordial impulses—improve yourself/fear outsiders—have been unwilling or unable to use human reason to devise a modus vivendi. In that scenario, alas, no one wins.  And if such reptilian tribalism prevails, the once “greener grass” will, almost certainly, itself be neglected by a newly-fractious society, more worried about profitless infighting than cooperative gardening. 

In other words, it is likely that—untended—the former Eden will ultimately wither and find itself transformed into an unhappy desert—a land resembling, alas, the very shithole countries that the immigrants had so recently sought to escape. And all this is plausible because anti-immigration campaigns, in their stupid refusal to acknowledge fundamental human impulses, are almost organically destined to produce little gain and much loss—on both sides:  loss for the immigrants—whose hoped-for green grass turned out to be unattainable —and even greater loss for the natives—whose forsaken green grass has dried up and blown away.

 “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind". (Hosea 8:7.) All so stupid. All so sad.

ICE is an Abomination

Rant alert!! The anti-immigrant campaign is only spuriously about “law-enforcement.” In reality, ICE is engaged in what amounts to a brutal POGRAM with at least two all-too-familiar and all-too-loathsome objectives: 1) SCAPEGOATING (in order to justify political incompetence by “blaming” minorities), and 2) ETHNIC CLEANSING (in order to legitimize brutally “removing” these minorities).

Some definitions:

POGROM: a mob attack, either approved or condoned by authorities, against the persons and property of a religious, racial, or national minority (historically against Jews in particular). Encyclopedia Britannica.

SCAPEGOATING: the act of unfairly blaming an individual or group for problems, mistakes, or negative experiences, often to deflect responsibility from the actual source or to serve other psychological needs. Google.

ETHNIC CLEANSING: the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Wikipedia.

I do not believe I can remain silent about this cruel and inhumane operation. ICE is an abomination.😭

Mercury Is Always In Retrograde

The entirety of humanity—worldwide—seems convulsed with right-wing, reactionary, anti-rational, anti-scientific sentiment. Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor was right: our species is not yet ready to accept the freedom and the responsibility offered by the exercise of our reason (and by Dostoyevsky’s Jesus). We don’t want to have to make decisions about things; thinking is too hard, too stressful. 

So people everywhere, even (perhaps especially) in those societies that are best-educated and thus potentially best-equipped to advance positive policies for humankind (the collective responsibility in these privileged societies being greater, it may follow that the collective refusal is correspondingly more onerous) are renouncing the single trait that distinguishes us from other creatures: our ability to make moral choices, discerning what is good from what is bad for the well-being of our species.

In any event, this zealous quest for authoritarian rule is a willful rejection of human freedom—a retreat to the brutishness the Grand Inquisitor recognizes as satanic, but—fortunately for the Rulers—controllable. And for the Ruled—comfortingly mindless.

And so, everywhere, all those aggrieved folks demanding “freedom” are actually submitting themselves, willingly and even enthusiastically, to freedom’s very opposite: the tyranny of inquisitors, dictators, religious authorities, gurus, charlatans, influencers, The Old Farmer’s Almanac and interpreters of Mercury in Retrograde. No wonder Trump won: he’s gonna, like the Inquisitor, “take care of us, whether we like it or not.” And, sadly, most of us do like it.

Same Old Weirdness

Why do journalists continue to feign “surprise” at Trump’s frantic bullshit—his flip-flopping, fantasizing and falsifying? Surely, by now, all of us (including his own “Faithful”) recognize that, c’mon, he doesn’t mean ANYTHING at ALL by ANY of it—that he may say something on Monday, contradict it on Tuesday, deny it on Wednesday, and forget it on Thursday. As Tim Walz says, it’s all just “weird.”

I’m amused to note, though, that many of the Faithful seem secretly (and hypocritically) relieved by this out-of-touch-ness. Since they consider themselves “good” people, they take self-forgiving comfort in knowing that their Great Leader himself is “fake” and therefore has no real-world intention of implementing (or indeed remembering) any of these dubious positions that even they, the Faithful, find embarrassing, aberrant or downright unethical.

 As for the rest of us, those who DO know a hawk from a handsaw, well, instead of pedantically “fact-checking” stuff that everyone not brain-dead knows is twaddle, shouldn’t we just dismiss the whole melodrama as a moronic rerun of a children’s show that no thinking adult would ever watch? Saturday morning fantasy. Certainly not worthy of prime-time “analysis.” It’s just so weird.

Dumbass Faux Pas

In today’s American English, the adjective “faux” does not actually mean “false.” Rather it denotes something that is “almost” true—and which is usually more instantly gratifying, both “physically” and “spiritually”—than dull, often unpleasant, truth. “Faux” is probably what Donald Trump (vaguely) means when he advocates “truthful hyperbole.” 

By dictionary definition, of course, hyperbole is necessarily “false”—and hence, in any scientific, objective context, it simply cannot be truthful. No, in the original French sense of the word, hyperbole is unquestionably faux, i.e., fake.

Nevertheless, because The Donald’s bullshit often “sounds” good and “looks” good, many “lite-headed” Americans choose to believe that it is not a lie: that the BS is merely fashionably faux—in the American sense— like the “leather” on their biker pants or the “fur” on their hoodies. And, well, shinier and fuzzier than the genuine article. In short, a better deal for the money. Seemingly. (Until it falls apart disastrously after being used twice.)

This is why these folks will vote for a Faux Fixer (and a probable felon) to be president. The polls suggest that DJT will indeed win and attempt to Make America Great Again—again. Americans have always been suckers for hyperbole and “almost truth.” So, here we go, friends. Again. Another dumbass faux pas.

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The Bloodbath of Terror

“Now, if I don't get elected, it's gonna be a bloodbath for the whole ... that's gonna be the least of it, it's gonna be a bloodbath for the country, that'll be the least of it." (Donald J. Trump, March 17, 2024, at a rally in Ohio.)

Today, a few days later, the talking heads on cable news are all atwitter trying to determine what Trump meant by “bloodbath.” Well, probably he didn’t actually MEAN much of anything—certainly nothing specific. He was bullshitting—off-the-cuff, as usual—and, as we should have learned by now, bullshitters are not much interested in rational discourse or the conveyance of any genuine information. No, rather than meaning,Trump’s words mostly communicated INTENT. Intent to rile up emotions, animosities, grievances—and, above all, FEARS. That’s his  modus operandi, after all—his own personal form of terrorism: a bullshit-induced bloodbath. 

Undoubtedly, it is by wielding this weapon of mass brain destruction that he intends to regain power and inaugurate the carnage (his word) of The Great Bloodbath of Bullshit Terror.

Now, I know that history doesn’t usually repeat itself—exactly—but they say it nonetheless sorta “rhymes.” It might, therefore, be instructive for DJT to remember that Robespierre, who invented the Original Reign of Terror, was eventually (believers in karma would say “inevitably”) himself a victim of the bloodbath he relished soaking in and kept so brimming with gore. Here’s Robespierre meeting his dear old friend, Madame Guillotine. So it goes.

Proper Penis Etiquette

As I was reading about the history of the Olympic Games, I came upon this picture of an athlete from ancient Greece. Now, I remembered that the Olde Tyme Greeks greatly appreciated the naked male body—and consequently they demanded that athletic competitors perform unclothed—obviously for the greater delectation of the spectators. But I was rather surprised to see that this particular youth had, it seems, tied a pretty little bow around his penis. Well, I asked myself: what’s THAT about? Was this a fashion statement? A less-than-subtle invitation to admire the “package” thus wrapped up? Phallically fascinated, I quickly googled “penis tied with bow” and came upon this explanation in Wikipedia: 

“Kynodēsmē ("dog tie") was a cord or string or sometimes a leather strip that was worn primarily by athletes in Ancient Greece and Etruria to prevent the exposure of the glans penis in public (considered to be ill-mannered) and to restrict untethered movement of the penis during sporting competition.” (for more more contemporary illustrations, see : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kynodesme )

So, this was a kind of (truly) bare-minimum jockstrap intended to prevent two things: 1)penile flopping and 2)foreskin slippage. Apparently, it was quite bad form to reveal one’s glans penis in public—so for the sake of modesty, the concealing foreskin needed to be kept firmly in place and tied shut—hence the string-around-the-tip.

The fancy bow was probably mostly decorative.

It occurs to me that, originally, at least, circumcised athletes, with their immodestly exposed glans—would have been quite unwelcome at the Olympics. (The Greek sports commentators would undoubtedly have been scandalized.) Perhaps that is why nowadays Olympians tend to coyly veil their goods in Spandex and Speedos. Thus the spectators can still enjoy the view, with no risk of being offended by a glimpse of glans.

 

I kinda miss the bow, though.