On this, the third anniversary of the founding of the (multi)
media beast that has become ModState,
let’s take a quick look back at what we’ve accomplished this year, and what has
kicked our collective asses. This being the “leather” anniversary (or crystal
if you follow “The Chicago Guide for
Style and Asinineness”, but we’ll forget that), Political Beast
would like to point out the tough (and not-so) commentaries and
informationalities offered by the crew aboard the good ship. Leather in the
minds of Political Beast has always conjured up images of John Wayne astride a
horse, hat always seeming to be just about to blow away as he leads his men (or
just himself) up a hill or down into some dangerous valley; always the hero,
always sure of himself, always a winner, even when he’s down. Our personal
favorite of his films is the one he shares with Jimmy Stewart, Lee Marvin, Vera
Miles (hottie!) and a host of others at the top of their game. We guess
competition for screen time sometimes brings out the best in you. “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”
suffers for being black-and-white, but you can still almost smell the boots and
saddles. Not quite sure what ModState
would smell like if you got us all together, but after banging this out over
the last few days, Political Beast needs a bath. In this political climate,
seems we all do…constantly. But, leather-faced and determined, ModState continues to dive down into the
belly of the cavernous animal that is reality and tries to stay in the saddle.
If a much greater man than any member of Political Beast could describe the
year in review, he might do it thusly:
We’d tilt our gaze downward, too. The Internet is forever.
“It is not the critical education Theresa Leary attempted to give us in her American Scandal Primer, or the fact that she forgot to capitalize “Deep Throat” that counts. Nor is it in the way DeViney points out how the Steele Dossier, or GamePartisan or Harvey Weinstein (no affiliation) stumbles, or where Apologetics articles could’ve done things better. Like not making a description of ModState’s history look like a Trump circle-jerk cabinet meeting. The credit belongs to the guys who are actually arguing (sometimes redundantly) in the Podcast, whose faces are marred by dusty facts and changing priorities, and sweat and lack of sleep, and blood from the veins popping out of DeViney’s neck whenever he has to admit Hillary is still relevant; who strives valiantly as Leary does to convince us that she is a mom; who errs in saying “We are all the descendants of rebels” (sorry Al Sharpton), who comes up WAY too wordy again and again, because there is no effort—especially by Political Beast’s recent writing team—without error in Wellein’s shifting definitions of socialism, and shortcoming in DeViney’s confusion over how “universal” universal healthcare should be; but who does, like Geoff Sheppard, actually strive to do the deeds of giving us an accurate portrayal of Katharine Graham’s role at The Post and setting the record straight; who knows the thinly-veiled enthusiasms of seeing the Mueller report exonerate Trump (DeViney), the great continuing devotions to the legacies of Kennedy (Wellein) and Nixon (I’ll ignore the obvious); who spends himself in a worthy cause, bringing the seedy-stream media to its knees (ok, they’re kinda doing that to themselves) who best knows in the end the “zero-tolerance, zero-humanity” (of getting) high on achievement, and who at the worst, if she fails at explaining why kids are still getting separated at the border, at least fails while daring us to take her seriously, so that none of these media warriors’ place will ever be with those cold, right-wing stooges or timid left-wing loons, who never accept Trump’s victory, Hillary’s defeat, or realize the exultation of the exit song on celluloid as the leather-bound hero rides off into the sunset.”
“Bentley! Bentley. I suggest…I suggest that you do something different with your life right now.” This instruction was delivered by my boss (at the time) to his unruly Huskie, but it might as well have been given to my entire generation.
As always, the day had given way to night and my mind had wrestled with itself long enough. I needed sanctuary, strong drink and a blank expression with which to watch the news on screens behind the heads of the locals. With the mind of a fried pie I careened my car down a thoroughfare of an unincorporated town in West Virginia, roughly sixty miles from Washington D.C.
“Babylon,” I came to call D.C. as a Sailor stationed in Bethesda, which was appropriate enough that no one cares to question the nickname. It was by a sense of awe, despair, disgust and reverence that I came by it the hard way some years ago.
The Christmas lights around Arlington had shone brightly on my most sentimental evening, awash with history and the sort of romance that saw my Army counterpart’s cheek against mine, her words in my ear accompanied by my kiss on her neck.
Then, the other shoe dropped and zang! I’m departing the parking garage of Target near P.F. Chang’s, a sudden desperate attempt to keep a fellow servicemember alive and out of trouble, and barely having arrived in Rockville, Maryland, found myself in the company of a remarkable amount of police officers. While all was eventually sorted out (one way or another), I did discover that being handcuffed, face down on the pavement amidst a soft rain gave me an amazing opportunity to learn and reevaluate the nonsense I’d allowed a foothold in my life. “Teachable moments,” I’ve come to call such events with a wince oft confused for a smile, and rightfully so.
“It’s an acquired taste.”
Let no good deed go unpunished.
“It was all downhill from there,” I uttered to my glass and coaster on the bar, awaiting another potent haul of ethanol. “Or is it, ‘down on the bed’ from there? Not nearly as catchy.” The general uproar that passed for ambience as karaoke loomed large made my private social commentaries a non-factor.
“Hell,” I continued, mulling over the equal parts glory and horror of yesteryear, “if I was a woman they’d’ve labeled me a slut.” This was most certainly true, as I had responded to the eventual collapse of the genuine, heartmelting romance that blossomed in Arlington by carousing. I went on to live up to the archetype of heathen in the Navy, only I hadn’t needed a new port. D.C. had an endless supply of trysts for me to temporarily bind the wound of heartbreak with. I had largely imploded things with she myself, but damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead, aye?
“Aye, got it!” I said, louder than intended as my libation arrived. Few noticed, none cared. But I digress.
Every single horror of the corruption of public life crept its way into Walter Reed the two years I’d been there as the primary Army and Navy hospitals merged there in Maryland. It was a handful of miles from the epicenter of our Federal Republic, our Representative Democracy. Whatever label you prefer, the genuine, tender romance and the unnecessary legal crucible were equal parts of the same story.
So it was yesterday and is today and will be tomorrow. Wars and rumors of wars will abound along with the usual ugliness, while the bountiful opportunities, resplendence, and monuments sacred to America and Her Republic will ring hollow for any looking for that chapter. However, for those with a soul not set for self-destruct, there was the beauty and elegance and love that I discovered in Babylon. For my part, I vacillated between the cauldron of brutality and the essence of hallowed humanity.
Lucifer and a third of his fellow angels rebelled (at least in part) over the perception that God valued something fashioned from dirt over them; we hamstrung ourselves with our humanity during that time (2011-2013) in Bethesda, both our frailties and our strengths.
Did we make the case against humanity with our failures? I’m not so sure. The defeatism and Apocalypticism of the admittedly conflicted era that was the “new” Walter Reed circa 2011-2013 stands apart from now in several ways. Without the deflating drudgery of rattling them all off, at the very least one could look their friends and enemies in the eye. Betrayal and intrigue might be lurking around the next corner (per the modus operandi of Babylon and the government circuit as a whole) but those seeming eons ago politics was still the art of compromise. Then-POTUS Obama (D-IL) and then-House Speaker Boehner (R-OH) can hardly be soberly accused of engaging in the politics of blood sport we’ve now.
Now? Depending on their background, looking one’s enemies and/or friends in the eye might get you flagged on any number of social media platforms and could very well get you labeled with some sort of “-ism”, as one type of “-ist” or another. A whole decade ago Section 230 was applied within the spirit of its creation, lending the happenings online a sort of Wild West vibe when juxtaposed to the great cosmic gag-reel taking place now.
“What is Section 230?” one might ask. This, too, is a well-placed and unscripted question, but it makes little difference when Louis Farrakhan can spit his vile verbal excrement at hapless passerby on social media, but not Donald Trump. No, indeed. Hardly an avid defender of the former POTUS, I nonetheless present our Federal support and protections for our Silicon Valley overlords as Exhibit A for the how/why (either/and/or) the Federal Communications Commission has adequate pretext to cry foul. This is tantamount to “collateral censorship”, or censorship by proxy. That’s the biggest item George Orwell didn’t foresee in my favorite novel, “1984”: private enterprise conducting the censorship, and not the state itself.
Since I’ve likely lost anyone who hates The Donald for my defending his First Amendment rights, I might as well toss a grenade in this burgeoning dumpster fire. Wouldn’t Joe Manchin lead off that way?
“The wind only blows sometimes.” “He’s exactly right!”
While hardly the binary option both the Communists of the Far Left and the Fascists of the Far Right want all the Sheeple to give an “Amen!” and believe, the conflict between being a John Locke liberal in favor of largely laissez-faire capitalism (not the crony kind) with a strong, (but) limited Federal government and in wanting a respectable return on our investment in Section 230 protections granted Silicon Valley (and company), it is amusing on a perverse level.
“Afterall,” I told myself, “everyone hates a centrist, so you might as well enjoy it, Jack. The good news is, only White elitists are storming off after closing your column a few paragraphs back. They can kick rocks. There’s surely a Mother Jones article or athletic mutant defecating on the very flag that enables their miserable existence out there, somewhere, that they can flee to. Still miserable, but they showed me! No First Amendment for the people who make us think and shit.”
It was only at the end of this paragraph that I realized I wasn’t just thinking this as I tapped it into a note on my phone for later insertion into this very diatribe. I was muttering much of it out loud.
“Ignore the madness of a world that has made this swashbuckler appear normal. Ignore the celebutante-rejects aghast at those not absorbed in Chinese spyware ‘social’ apps available on any mainstream App Store.”
And why not? Afterall, the Communists now want the populace to swallow the latest swill their Thought Police have puked out, and nod slowly, basking in the wisdom of the notion that Black children being taught mathematics is racist. Conversely, the Fascists want the citizenry at-large to embrace their latest, unintelligible Reductio Ad Absurdum that beating cops to a pulp while shouting racist terms at the non-White officers is okay as long as they’re patriots. Thin Blue Line and all. “Thin Blue Line”, you ingrates? Put the straw down.
“In God We Trust.” Mhmm.
“Dear God Almighty,” I mumbled into my Long Island Iced Tea, nearly gone due to the urgent need to anesthetize myself. No reply, and not because He wants us to forget He exists, but because it’s the pizza we ordered, and it has arrived with all the trappings. Whose fault is that?
The lunacy in the former example is in those on the Far Left who by proxy think the Black intellect is so dormant, psyche so timid, that there need be no Black doctors, economists, engineers, et cetera, in the future. Mathematics is a rather integral part of the process of those career paths. Who’s holding who back with racist ideology again, exactly?
The madness in the latter example is at least as vivid and particularly poignant from people on the Far Right who think cops can do no wrong. You say The Filth went too far in Example X? “I say they didn’t go too far enough!” some neo-Successionist will bleat with the fervor of a patriot, by God. Just a patriot to another country, and not this one. But why quibble about it? Sure, seems reasonable enough to pass muster on “Squidbillies.”
Imitation being the highest form of flattery, the method to the unorthodoxy of this publication has never been less necessary. Both extremes in the sadly binary world of Castro and Mussolini neophytes demand the long-term vision, the sort of engaging in politics (again, “The Art of Compromise”) as a year-round endeavor that there is no app or “hack” for. The marathon, not the sprint, is what is at hand. I’d rather flatter the Edward Brooke III, the Alexander Hamilton, the Barbra Streisand, the Hunter S. Thompson and even the Master Shake with imitation than embrace the intellectual suicide of either Irredeemable America or Exceptional American Unilateralism.
Whichever clown car takes the stage from either extremist wing of discourse, they both will assure us that we’d feel so much better if only we’d embrace their brand of groupthink. Tsk, tsk, I know, but such is the rot of the putrescence we’ve inexplicably opted to wallow in.
“Soylent Green is people.”
What both teams of malcontents mean is we’ll feel much better carrying all of our favorite shows with us on all of our devices as they continue embezzling and funneling money to the duopoly in Babylon. The royalty on Capitol Hill will then reward our wholehearted faith with continued malignant governance and further insolvency on every level (social, fiscal, geopolitical, et al).
“Who knows?” I mumbled with a shrug. “With any luck, the dead will walk again and we’ll have an existential reason to disallow the Neanderthals in Congress from fucking the same coconut over and over while saying they’re carrying out the people’s business. All, naturally, with a straight face. And pursed lips. Can’t forget the ‘duck face.’ Gotta meet my fellow Millennials halfway.”
“You say something, Hun?”
The bartender had taken notice of my glass being devoid of strong drink, and grew concerned. Animals entering sexual congress with fruit, however, passed muster.
‘Of course it did,’ I thought, but could only reply with a low rasp as I exited my barstool.
And on the 8th day, God made bears. Lots and lots of bears.
Does this era need introduction? Or, rather, may a suitable introduction be written? I report, you deride.
1: In any rational era, the sudden appearance of lurid photographs of well-known public figures tends to happen without the consent of those captured in the images. Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Anthony Weiner, et al. Notable exceptions to this are of the celebutante variety who sport last names such as Hilton and Kardashian, but then, their deliberate release of self-incriminating material isn’t indicative of a rational era.
That there’s a Stairway to Heaven but a Highway to Hell is indicative of expected traffic volume.
The great Jerry Falwell, Jr., well his undeniable greatness as an Evangelical Christian minister and university president is so ineffable, so vast, that he was no longer able to be confined by any notion of modern decency. If that’s still a thing, that is. Either way, the photograph posted containing the erstwhile head of Liberty University (and descendent of the late and decent Jerry Falwell) is disturbing on several counts. Let’s take a look:
Now, I’m not sure if it’s the ghastly attempt at humor (yeah, “black water”, haw haw haw!), the self-caricature of the gut and the unzipped pants combined with the awful rug on his counterpart (who is not his wife, for those keeping score at home), the fact that students of said Evangelical university get expelled for drinking and/or extra-marital sexual encounters, or that this wasn’t a leak at all that makes this such a disgrace. He could’ve just said it was a faux Black Dog in his glass and been done with it.
The man (so-called) “leaked” it via his own social media aperture, and then delivered a truly abysmal mockery of an apology on-air, and I quote: “I’ve promised my kids I’m going to try to be…I’m gonna try to be a good boy from here on out.” Rock and Roll, Jerry!
Oh and Mrs. Falwell, when your marriage does end, remember: you [expletive deleted] your rebound, and that’s it. You don’t permanently abscond from reality and keep [expletive deleted] them long-term and/or marry them. Especially, I might add, if you plucked them from the extras of “The Walking Dead.”
Silly me. But seriously, though: booze and Evangelicals and social media shouldn’t mix.
2: At times, the headlines write themselves. In their own attempt to swing loose with reality, as it were, Iran has a fabricated aircraft carrier resembling one of those wielded by the United States Navy. “Why”, you ask? An entirely unscripted and well-placed question. For their own propaganda purposes that is, until the entire experiment blew up in their faces. Living out their own version of “delirium tremens”, Iran was so successful in this charade that their accidental destruction of a prop US Navy aircraft carrier poses a threat to a major thoroughfare in the oil trade. Posing an existential threat to traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, and things apparently unbeknownst to Iran such as tides can shift the wreckage, endangering oil tankers.
Give the Ayatollah our best. Speaking of “the best”, if you’re going to challenge the world’s preeminent naval power, you’d better come correct. The Battle of Evermore this is not.
3: Biden must face Trump in debate(s). Yes, it’s answering a “double dog dare” from the POTUS and no, you don’t want to give in to the whims of a bully. But if you don’t follow through then it looks like you’re hiding in a basement and afraid to face Donald J. Trump on the stage. What’s the worst that could happen? They then “triple dog dare” one another to a lindy hop dance-off to the “Misty Mountain Hop” or hand out four sticks (one to both members of each ticket) to swing with? Why would you be afraid of that if you’re in the Biden camp unless, per the Trump camp’s assertions, the former Vice President will be unable to remember whether he’s going to California, or another, “y’know, the thing” that the Founding Fathers said? The great equalizer is the human ego. They’ll debate.
This is an event waiting to go wrong. Don’t hang out with bears. [image credit to Daily Caller & Barstool Sports]4: Meanwhile, the National Park Service has posted a warning urging American adventurers not to confront bears but, if they do, to not take advantage of their slower companions. And no, this is not made up. Nor is the response of a pack of humans, recently, to a bear arriving in their midst. They didn’t flee or otherwise attempt to discourage the bear; instead they took pictures of their merry band whilst feeding the bear. Good call, ‘Murica.
5: Bill Barr’s appearance was a disgrace for everyone except the Attorney General. For committee chairman Nadler, to open the hearing with that statement was an outrage; and Jordan, thanks for the monologue on things that happened before Barr was back on the job and for God’s sake put your damn coat on!
6: Stat of the Week: the POTUS’ campaign is knocking on 1 million doors a week; the former VPOTUS’ camp is knocking on 0. As in ZERO. Z-E-R-O. This sort of nonsense only seems like nonsenseuntil the time when the levee breaks. Underestimate the mad media genius of The Donald at your peril.
Y’know what? Let’s just cancel everything. If everything’s priority one, then nothing is priority one.
With the majority of public discourse non-existent and what discussion does occur usually ending acrimoniously, I recalled a lesson (from the past) learned the hard way: in life, there are times the rules are such that, indeed, sometimes the only way to win is not to play.
Politics is considered the art of the compromise, or “the game of compromise,” to suit the lesson. Now, I don’t know if IQs dropped, if we forgot, if the entire paradigm changed despite the entire pantheon of examples (of public discourse), or if it’s an all-of-the-above that’s closer to where we’re at, but we’ve forgotten. One way or another, it’s that simple.
As “The Great Experiment”, that means that this is a failure as a nation. A failure to even try to communicate and find some semblance of common ground, to find a way to even try to be civil and respect one another’s time to speak, to actually listen to a message before deciding what it means and how we view that meaning, to even agree to try and communicate at all.
You see, the trick is in self-control. Before picking up your pitchforks and torches or, worse, leaving altogether, let the damned man have a few final words.
Fistfight breaks out in Turkish parliament
I say “self-control” is the key, if there is one, because in order for public discourse to function where there’s debate, dialogue and (hopefully) resolution at some point, we must individually approach this forum with the intention of conducting one’s self in a civil manner no matter what the opposition says or how they say it.
The first impulse is outrage, I’m aware, followed by some variant of, “So what do we do when [insert example of national Democrats and/or Republicans] start acting the fool?” And that’s precisely where, following my abandonment of my personal Facebook and Twitter accounts that the lesson learned previously (“sometimes the only way to win is not to play”) I remembered that silence isn’t always concession. Sometimes, it might be easy to think, “Ahp! Yep, see, DeViney’s silent so he’s conceding,” when, the truth is, I’ve also come to embrace another tactic summarized best as, “Let them talk; most people will hang themselves given enough rope.”
CNN was really on to something when they debuted the policy debates, featuring an epic duel between Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) versus Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) engaged in an actual, substantive, non-campaign debate. Too bad they didn’t keep the series alive.
In order to pull this off, one must listen to their opponent’s words and, I don’t have chapter and verse from Harvard or Little Sister’s of The Poor and this that or the other study to cite, but I do know that it is humanly impossible for you to absorb as much of what someone else is saying while you’re running your piehole. An easy life “hack” for this (I’m trying to meet you halfway, my fellow Millennials) is to engage in one of America’s most obvious traditions and gently shove, well, pie or any other food one prefers into their gaping maw, which should, advisably, prevent the pie-eater from interrupting while someone else is speaking.
Another idea, and I only mention it in passing, is to teach your children these same concepts so that there’s a generational sort of reboot here, if you will.
Another really good concept, and this brings me back to what we’ve lost in terms of public dialogue, as a nation, as a people, is drop the assumptions. Do I really need to say that, as a Federal republic of 325 million-plus people scattered across 50 nation-states over 3 million-plus square miles, people come from different backgrounds and therefore automatically have their own way of doing things?
Apparently. Just remember: how good is it? Really good.
“Why does any of this matter?” one might ask, certainly a wise and reverent question, and unscripted at that!
As I face the active task of delivering closing remarks that are dually comprehensible and comprehensive, my personal political platform has never stood out more and conversely never kept me directly out of the fray as often. That’s weird. We’re living in a weird era.
As a centrist, I see, for instance, the keen insight President Trump into the general failings of a bloated Federal bureaucracy that feeds right into the national angst of an alienated body of followers who argue the value they get for their investment as taxpayers isn’t worth spending in excess of $4 trillion annually. However crude one views his “one-in, two-out” policy regarding regulations, he was onto something. Specifically, the broader argument that, not because of lack of desire and hardly because of lack of money but because of the inadequacies and failings that are part of the very fabric of a bloated, administrative state; in short, our Federal government is a monstrosity. A monstrosity, I might add, that needs to be shrunk, not given more money.
On the other hand, I also see the benefits of a strong, but limited, leaner Federal government with a decisive Executive having multiple opportunities for reform in bipartisan areas (fringes on both sides notwithstanding) with Congress, and I see those very same opportunities going wanting right now. And that is where, yes, I can see the personality crises stemming from being willing to be at odds with anyone, anytime over anything bringing about, indeed, a sort of “Trump Fatigue.”
That cuts both ways as well: while the people grow weary of the constant drama President Trump’s approach relies upon, they also tire of every single failing in DC being laid at his feet.
The same President who picked a fight (via social media, but of course) with an Autistic foreign teenager over climate change he maintains doesn’t exist to begin with also felt like the status quo that denied opportunities to felons post-release was unfair (See: “The First Step Act”). The very same POTUS who inexplicably disavowed support (however briefly) for our Kurdish allies also did what every Administration since Carter had threatened to by being the American Executive who stood up to Communist China’s underhanded trade practices and illegal valuations of the Yuan (their currency), which gave them unfair advantage(s) in imports/exports against other countries.
I don’t blindly support any politician, and I’m leery of ideologues. I don’t have any heroic, holistic advice on how to approach the President or his (many) conflicts, some contrived and some born of circumstances outside of his control.
These thugs didn’t issue executive orders that restricted travel from other countries into their own. They killed people they didn’t like and/or want. Perhaps a bit of caution, then, before ascribing the President Trump to the ignominious league of names like “Hitler” and “Stalin”, methinks?
But I do know this: the sooner we can get one extreme to stop canonizing every wacky idea the President utters and convince the other side that, no, Sugar, dictators don’t ask other countries to stop immigrants, they just have them shot. Dictators don’t ask, and they don’t Tweet about being treated “very badly” by the judiciary and the media. They don’t have to.
Look at the big picture, and tell me where you’d rather be that would be a better country from which to launch Endeavor A or stand up for Civic Cause B, et al. So, you don’t like the President. I don’t know how much the President likes the President. But you ought to be able to know the difference in there being room for (bigly) improvement in our mixed capitalist system, and in living in a concentration camp as you and your fellow undesirables are systematically exterminated by an authoritarian state.
