AUKUS vs. FRUG (Continuous War)

The new, seemingly redun-dant, anti-China “alliance” between three countries already allied—Australia, the UK and the US—a.k.a. AUKUS—reminds me of “Oceania” in Orwell’s 1984. “The war,” Orwell observes, “is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.” Thus, in 1984, alliances between super-blocks change abruptly, enemies become allies, history is rewritten, but the essential thing—war—continues: never fought on territory belonging to any of the three superstates, but always in the “neutral” zone of North Africa, the Middle East, Southern Asia. Victory is not a goal—that is impossible, indeed unthinkable. No, WAR, itself, is the goal—the only way to preserve the political and economic status quo.

Analogously, in making its deal with Australia and the UK (one wonders why the British were included,  since they have very little presence in the Pacific these days), the U.S. treated France—and Europe—with the same casual/cynical disregard that Oceania displayed in dumping Eastasia and allying itself with Eurasia, its adversary as recently as the day before. This was shitty, yes, but—you know—it was a “necessary” maneuver to ensure that temporarily absent, but absolutely vital, WARFARE will be promptly resumed and will continue—this time with China and its proxies. French submarines just weren’t nasty enough, don’t you see? They just weren’t sufficiently bellicose to really make the the Chinese squeal.

So, you’ll have to get over it, M. Macron. Or perhaps play a little of the continuous war game yourself. For starters, Mr. Putin would undoubtedly be happy to ally himself with you and maybe Germany against perfidious AUKUS. You could call your real-life version of Orwell’s Eurasia FRUG—FranceRUssiaGermany. With a bit of pot-stirring, a nice war could probably be arranged in, say, Lebanon—which is already a wasteland anyway. Just a suggestion.

Or, alternatively, you could insincerely accept the U.S.’s insincere apology for throwing you under the bus. Honestly, we feel really, really bad that you just don’t seem to understand (despite France’s own distinguished history of self-serving betrayals) how these things work. Of course, we send our thoughts and prayers. At least, you can always count on them.

AMERICA THE BOOTYFUL (Obesity Version)

America the Bootyful

Oh beautiful for spacious thighs

For ample belly gains

For purple mounds of flesh to be

Tucked miserably in Hanes.

America, America,

God shed his grease on thee, 

And crown thy good

With blubberhood,

From knee to bulging knee.

Transgenderism Is Natural: Get Over It.

Yuval Harari, in his book Sapiens, makes this irrefutable observation about the “nature” of nature: “Whatever is possible,” he writes, “is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behavior, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist, so it would need no prohibition.”

In short, what is “natural” is, in its mere existence, physically true, but morally neutral—neither good nor bad. Rather, it is humans who assign morality to natural phenomena—and we do so (or should do so) based upon the effect—positive, negative, or zilch—they have on our species’ well-being. It is humans who decide if a particular “possible” behavior is good for humans (useful to humanity at the present time), bad for humans (harmful to humanity at the present time), or tolerable for humans (of no particular consequence to humanity at the present time). 

 Nothing could be more dishonest or irresponsible, therefore, than for individual humans to conjure up some supposedly objective and eternal “nature” that they fancy accords transcendant moral value to their own subjective and time-constrained prejudices. Let us rein in our hubris! Human beings themselves have only existed (and thus participated in nature’s possibilities) for about 200,000 years or so. A mere flicker of time: other “possibilities” will undoubtedly arise to follow us. But let us nonetheless endeavor to delay that replacement as long as possible—by making sound judgments now about how to play the hand nature has dealt us.

As an admittedly modest step toward realizing this goal, I’d like to propose that we acknowledge transgenderism/transsexuality as a very real possibility that does indeed exist at the present time and that is therefore entirely natural. As for its “morality,” i.e., its relative value for homo sapiens, I also propose that we accept it as—at the very least—tolerable (inoffensive) for humanity in general and, moreover, clearly good for those individuals for whom it is not just a possibility, but an incontrovertible fact.

In short, let’s stop fussing about this particular natural phenomenon. It’s here, it’s true, it’s OK. Let’s move on, humanity.We have many other, much more genuinely dangerous, “natural” behaviors to declare immoral and, for our common good—perhaps even salvation—regulate. Racism? War? Gun love? Misogyny? Child abuse? 

It’s time to be more sapiens, people. 

How To Do A Coup

Look, Donald. Ya gotta stop all the legal pussyfooting—it’s just pissing off the judges, even those traitorous finks you appointed. Just yank on your big boy dictator suit and bite the bullet and cross the Rose Garden Rubicon and whip out your sharpie and sign an executive order declaring the Constitution to be unconstitutional and suspending it until Jared Kushner can get it fixed. That’s the slickest (and probably only) way for you to stay in the oval office until you pop your clogs from metastasized bone spurs. Nice sunglasses, BTW. 

P.S.: you might need a teensy bit of help from those army dudes you call losers and suckers. And why not throw a little party for the boogaloo boys—they really like you and might be willing to die for you if you serve ‘em cheeseburgers stuck with little American flags on toothpicks.

America: Know-Nothings and Nincompoops

As we try to make sense of the fact that (apparently) millions of Americans cling to a totally fantastical belief that the reality of Trump’s defeat is not the REAL reality, we should probably remember that one of our country’s foundational “freedoms” was—and remains—religious/ideological nincompoopery: a determination by diverse groups of “true believers” to believe whatever they damned well WANT to believe, in spite of what they perceive as vast, (albeit often evidence-based), “conspiracies” that insist that they (the nincompoops) are quite simply “nuts.” America is the quintessential Loony Bin—in which, periodically at least—a gang of inmates gains control. But only, of course, after vicious squabbling among the asylum’s diverse factions about which is the most “qualified” to govern by virtue of, er, superior know-nothing nincompoopery.

The Trump Apostles’ Creed

I believe in Oh My God (OMG),
the Father almighty,
Creator of money and property ,
and in Donald Trump, his Instrument, our Lord,
who was conceived by Fox News,
born of Twitter,
suffered under Joseph Biden,
was defeated, lost, and humiliated by nasty people;
he descended into CNN,
on Inauguration Day, he stomped out of the House;
he ascended into Mar-a-Lago
and is seated at the right hand of his toady Lindsey Graham;
from thence he will attempt to overthrow the election results and Make America Grate Again.
I believe in Holy Hyperbole, 
the holy GOP,
the collusion of conmen, 
the forgiveness of cheating, 
the resurrection of the Proud Boys,
and lying everlasting.
Amen.

Secret Trump Voters

Remember Jerry Lundegaard in “Fargo”? If he were voting in this election, I suspect that he would be a “secret Trumpster”—someone who would tell a poll-taker that (like any “good” used-car salesman) he loved decency and compassion and would, of course, vote for Biden. But, in the privacy of the voting booth, he would practically break his pencil in his enthusiasm to release all his hatreds and put an X in the Trump box: blacks, gays, Jews, Mexicans, Muslims, feminists, atheists—not to mention inconvenient wives—all consigned to the Trump woodchipper. In my neck of the woods, these “nice” guys with plodding reptilian brains are much more worrisome—because they are undoubtedly more numerous—than the unapologetically “tough-guy” MAGA-hatters.