Real hope isn't a passive thing, you know; no, hope is a crucial step in the natural process of repair. You can't fix a thing until you have the conviction it should be fixed, and the expectant determination to fix it—and if that doesn't describe hope, I don't know what does.
And hope builds upon the first step in the natural progressive process of repair—awareness—so I intend to open with an act of awareness for all of us by witnessing to many ugly truths that are easily observable all around us.
Things look bad, friends. Worse than usual I mean.
The last week felt much like the other two events that most advanced American fascism—that being the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Trump election. There's a pervasive and inescapable feeling of dread and despair around, because, as fascists see it, there is supposed to be.
Dread and despair are spiritual states that fascists, those American supremacist bullies—who'd like everyone to be either owned by them or dead in the ground—most want us to occupy. And fascists are working very hard to make sure that dread and despair are what we feel.
Here's what happened: The fascist majority in the body that for some reason is still allowed to call itself our Supreme Court took the Constitution and American democracy out in the back of the building and shot it in the head.
This is exactly what the presidents who appointed them always intended for them to do, exactly the act for which these thugs in robes have been lavishly rewarded ahead of the fact by christian billionaires who intend to control our bodies and lives through punishment and fear.
There is a rumor that 'christians' are people who worship Jesus Christ and follow his example. Such people do exist, and we're invited to view them as *real* Christians, but for all practical political purposes in this country, those are not the real christians.
No, when it comes to the way power is organized and arrogated in the United States, a real christian is a person who believes that they will very soon be ushered into an eternal gated community paradise because God has specially chosen them for that reward.
When it comes to the way power is organized and arrogated in the United States, a real christian is a person who believes that everyone else will suffer conscious torture forever because they deserve it, and that this will all happen just as soon as the world burns to a crisp.
And because the *real* christians of America believe this madness, they're trying to make the world burn to a crisp just as fast as they can, and this is why I'm not capitalizing "christian" in this piece even though religions usually get that honorific, because fuck them.
The supremacist court—I don't think we should call them Supreme—shot the Constitution in the head in the name of defending the Constitution, because fascists, like all supremacists and other types of narcissists, only ever act from fathomless bad faith.
The bad faith from which fascists act is a fathomless pit they dig for everyone around them to inhabit forever; it's the mass grave they intend to push us all into.
Anyway, our bribed fascists in robes made a full course meal of the execution in the last week or so.
For an aperitif, they made bribing public officials legal, which is handy for them, since "lavish rewards to public officials for acts of corruption" is a pretty good working definition for the crime of bribery.
Bribery is key here, because I think you all understand almost as well as Clarence Thomas does that while our fascist-appointed judges are eager for American fascism to sprint ahead, all the same, if that's going to happen, then daddy ought to get a little taste.
And you could point out that its not so bad as I'm putting it, because the supremacist court only made it legal to give public officials gifts *after the fact*—if, that is, you are a fan of complacency, or if you have the native experience of a baby bird new born into the world.
For the appetizer, the Supremacists got something for the whole table, and officially made it a criminal offense to become poor while in possession of a living human body.
If you are a fan of complacency, you could say its not so bad as I'm putting it, because they merely made it legal for local governments to criminalize the act of sleeping outside, but the reality is that if you are unhoused, you are outside.
And, if you are outside with a human body, then you are going to have to sleep eventually, so the moment you become unhoused in fascist America, your human body becomes a crime that can be punished in I suppose whatever fashion best suits the fash.
In any case, our for-profit prisons certainly have a new greenfield that I'm sure we all hope they can turn into double-digit growth, especially since the same private equity that manages our prisons at profit is making sure that housing becomes less and less affordable.
And entities reliant upon prison labor for their own operational models will have a fresh labor pool from which to draw, so the tradition of cruelty toward those who are being pushed by greed into poverty will continue and I'm sure christians and capital will be well pleased.
Speaking of things that capital is well pleased by, don't forget the main course: the Supreme Court went ahead and seized for the judiciary the right to determine not only the Constitutionality of the law, but the right to ignore facts while doing so, or to make some facts up.
This lets judges ignore experts who understand how our complex world works and how laws can be applied to achieve their stated ends, which frees judges from "the cult of science," as a semi-prominent American fascist recently put it.
This allows any law to mean any thing any judge wants it to mean—provided the judge is a fascist, because all non-fascist interpretations will eventually find their way to the supremacist court, who believe laws should protect money from human beings, not the other way around.
And if you are a fan of complacent framing, you'll say that the ruling only took the interpretation of the law out of the hands of unelected bureaucrats and put it into the hands of the people—an interpretation that makes perfect sense provided you also ignore reality.
For example, you'll have to ignore the fact that the supremacist court was also not elected and was mostly appointed by men who never received the most votes from the people, which should be easy enough if you are free of "the cult of science."
And for dessert—an amuse-bouche, really—the supremacist court went out and coronated any Republican President of the United States as our dictatorial king, announcing that presidents have total immunity for any act that they take as part of the official business of their office.
If you're a fan of complacency, then maybe you'll want to point out that actually they said that the president would be immune from *official* acts, leaving it to the lower courts to decide which acts were official, but if you're being rugged reality, you'll notice reality.
Those who notice reality will witness to the clear truth: Any judge ruling that a crime committed by a Republican president is prosecutable will eventually find the case appealed back to the supremacist court, who have already ruled that a fascist coup attempt is not a priority.
The American fascist party leader—who has spent his career fanaticizing about wielding dictatorial power—will if he attains office be allowed to do commit any crime he wants, however he wants, whenever he wants.
And so I think we can see the fascist christian vision of the future. These apocalypse-minded religious creeps intend to convert everyone who isn't a mostly white mostly male mostly christian wealthy person into one of the three states they find acceptable—servant, slave or corpse.
They have our military—including the domestic military we call police—and our high court in their corner. They've made it so that wealthy people can do whatever the hell they want to other people, and after, those people will have to pay the price for what has been done to them.
It's a corruption of ... well, of everything. An abrogation of humanity.
You could call them Nazis, but Republicans and christians may earn a worse name than that before they're done, because we are dancing on the edge of climate catastrophe, and they want to burn the world.
@JuliusGoat A key point: for the fundies, the world burning and the end of civilization is a key milestone towards paradise. Nuclear apocalypse, climate change and suffering of humanity is literally a feature. Providing they're ok, of course.
@davoloid @JuliusGoat
In support of your points above …
https://awscommunity.social/@mastobit/112544688127647393