How to Screw Courage

Don't you absolutely treasure when people tell you their gambling with real people living real lives in the real world is a game they play to score points against real people living real lives in the real world? 

Because point scoring is as demure as game playing is as demure as brinkmanship masquerading as outrageous ploys for specious and sophistic puffery and deification?

#gamblinglife

How to Screw Courage

People pretend that selling your soul is a last act. That a first step is the only purportedly 'difficult' one. That every act after is neither here nor there. A painless slide into ease. 

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But selling your soul is not an excising of conscience. It is a rational decision to position yourself above everyone. It is a ruthless justification that insists on positioning your interests ahead of everything. Because anything less would not be

'right'.

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It assumes that morality is an imaginary obstruction. A costumed affectation that is 'put on' and 'set aside' like an alien-armor-suit of make-believe-invulnerability. A baptism of 'magic dust' from the props department of an amateur theater.

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Principles, dear captain obvious, interfere and impede, do they not? Like runaway forces of nature, they wreck what is undeniably precious,

legacies of greed.

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People pretend that selling your soul is a very smart feat of genius. That a life arcing towards the attaining and the amassing of a lot in the hands of a few is

fair. 

That this is what it means to earn, that this is what it means to be deserving of generously lined silk pockets, that this what it means to receive what you are due, 

dammit.

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But it is not work to allocate wealth or assign power or disavow aid, to enrich the wealthy or empower the powerful or deny the beset. It is not toil. It is not labor. It is not sacrifice. It is neither blood nor sweat nor tears.

It is a calculated decision to position yourself above everyone. It is a callous justification that insists on positioning your interests ahead of everything. Because anything less, to be brutally honest, would not be

'just'.

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It assumes that 'equality under the law' is toothless by purposeful design: 

when it is working as intended, it is pacifying fools and idiots with spit slinging and gnat swarming; when it is working as commanded, it is codifying patronage, partiality, prejudice.

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Indeed:

as an axe, 'the law' falls on enemies and scum and parasites; as a shield, 'the law' protects the wealthy and the powerful. What a providential hymn

to live and die by.

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People pretend that selling your soul is a show of gallant strength. 

That appeasing, that abject groveling before, that surrendering and submitting to tryhard tyrants, czars, emperors, caudillos, kings, on their terms of course, is how to be principled, how to be powerful, how to be peaceful.

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However, when no despotic tryhard would ever in a million lifetimes stand for a cessation of literal or figurative war without demanding the exacting of retribution and spoils as an imperative condition of peaceful accord: 

this is not a triumphant illustration of bullies holding 'all the cards' gloriously proclaiming their literal or figurative armistice shall be bought and paid for with souls graciously sold to slake the unrepentantly insatiable pleasure of an opportunistic tryhard;

this is a sham of conscience, an unmitigated corruption of law and order, a perversion of alliances secured by assurances of mutualism that smugly dictates the price of nothing beyond existence itself shall be

gratefully demure spinelessness.

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As if a 'f_ck you' to the backbone estate for not screwing their courage to the sticking place is how prayers are answered, how promises are kept, how people are saved

from self-respect.

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When point scoring and game playing and brinkmanship masquerading as outrageous ploys for specious and sophistic puffery and deification 

is sanctioned in the name of morality policing, is excused in the name of scorn and indifference, is condoned in the name of partisan loyalty -

this does not 'cancel' the reality of real people living real lives in the real world like a scripted show in the 'nonfiction' category or 'rewrite' the reality of real people living real lives in the real world like a bestselling novel that is not 'truer than fiction'.

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In other words, reality can neither be 'cancelled' nor 'rewritten' on the basis of

because a lie is sanctioned, because a lie is excused, because a lie is condoned.

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Which to say, all the tools in the world can applaud being tools in the world until all the hot air in the world is used up by fabulous effort and still,

all the tools in the world will remain nothing more than tools.

That tools profess and proclaim otherwise, can neither 'cancel' nor 'rewrite'

reality itself.

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That this strategy is the game plan of a 'party', an 'ideology', a 'system of belief', a 'policy', etc., speaks not to a trustworthy position that 'keeps it real' or 'truths' -

but to a relentlessly self-interested willingness and wherewithal to deny reality and defy the truth. For no self-respecting tryhard would ever in a million lifetimes stand for the backbone estate.

#thef_ckyouestate

M

Here and Now and Then and After

Singularly wrongful and especially cutthroat ambition on thrones, dripped in the emperor's new regalia, ruling as co-divinities alongside justful and truthful immortals,

has never been real and is still anathema to what is right.

Here and Now and Then and After

What comes this way? This self-righteous self-superior self-satisfied, ignoble and transactional, wildly hallucinatory and torturously anti-reasoned way?

Not good things, 

that is for damn sure.

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I am not surprised that 'this way' is not without its cheerleaders. Notwithstanding, 'this way' not only satisfies millionaires and billionaires, capitalists and oligarchs, titans and magnates, 'this way' is taken by rank and file administrators, lawyers, operators, just like that. 

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You see, where there is self-righteous self-superior self-satisfied will, there is 'this way'. Whether 'this way' amounts to real action that effects, say, efficiency or lives up to, say, promises, is moot. Because the wheelhouse of a surrogate or pharisaical mouthpiece is unapologetic nescience. Not plays on a playing field.

Such that cheerleaders who passionately hoot and holler every 'success' and 'triumph' of 'this way', are hardly arbiters of greatness achieved, right here.

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You see, where ignoble and transactional incentives comfort millionaires and billionaires, capitalists and oligarchs, titans and magnates, there is 'this way'. Whether 'this way' spares a sole penny for thoughts about employees or customers or trade deficits or economic realities, is neither here nor there. Because plausibly principled props are not only not bona fide, they're espoused like the better part of valor is pleasure.

In a fictional narrative where a tyranny of the bottom line is 'killing it', being defended, protected, and safe-guarded from any defiance of a manifestly destined right to unbridled unregulated unlimited wealth and power, is the constitutional privilege of predatory, militant, and exploitative convictions.

Never mind how.

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You see, where rank and file administrators and lawyers and operators indulge wildly hallucinatory and torturously anti-reasoned positions, there is 'this way'. Whether 'this way' is jubilantly welcomed by acolytes or by no one, it plainly resembles Saw more than it resembles a gauzy unfocused shrovetide carnival to fete a goldentide of free and fair democracies.

As if fiats that burn to the ground and abolish and feed to wood chippers and wreck public interests and the common good and representative government and the public are 24 karat gold diktats that chainsaw abuse, right now.

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I am not surprised that 'this way' is welcomed by winners who risibly repute themselves 'the majority', who theatrically style themselves 'the people', who incongruously nominate themselves to serve neither the majority nor the people.

As if singularly wrongful and especially cutthroat ambition on thrones, dripped in the emperor's new regalia, ruling as co-divinities alongside justful and truthful immortals is not only what is apodictic, but also 'the way'

then,

good things come,

after,

that is for damn sure.

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Needless to say,

performative umbrageous vigilance to do with justifying how 'waste' or 'fraud' or 'abuse' is being eliminated, right here and right now, is about theatrics and 'selling it' and virality and 'memes'.

Because 

the point is not about found 'waste' or 'fraud' or 'abuse', so much as 'named' public interests and the common good and representative government and the public, that are 'shamed' as definitive 'evidence' and categorical 'proof' of an agenda that steadfastly opposes vesting in democracies and republics, an apodictic law of Ate.

Because

neither a literal nor figurative chainsaw nor singular executive order nor literal nor figurative wood chipper nor especial deciding opinion is about 'defending' free and fair democracies or 'saving' our republic.

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Because

public interests and the common good and representative government and the public

are the 'enemies' of this self-righteous self-superior self-satisfied, ignoble and transactional, wildly hallucinatory and torturously anti-reasoned way; the 'enemies' of cheerleaders, millionaires and billionaires, capitalists and oligarchs, titans and magnates, rank and file administrators, lawyers, operators; the 'enemies' of winners and co-divinities;

whose manifestly destined right to unbridled unregulated unlimited wealth and power has never been real and is still anathema to what is right.

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Such that

so-called 'broad endorsements' of such nonsense, reported 'groundswells of support' for such nonsense, and 'widespread sharing' of such nonsense

reflects neither an 'uprising' of a 'common sense super majority' nor a 'mandate' from an 'overwhelmingly illiberal electorate', so much as 

an amplifying of self-righteous self-superior self-satisfied, ignoble and transactional, wildly hallucinatory and torturously anti-reasoned cheerleading, 

pretending to 'speak truth to power'.

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For you see,

I see

pretender kings parading the emperor's new drip, saber-rattling the emperor's new regalia; false idols promising to throne integrity, while crowning liars who troll the truth; ogrish servants of Ate being neither meek lamps of God nor civil servants who represent the will of 'the people';

no? 

M

No Gods Before Ate

The promise and hope of a 'meritocracy' is the promise and hope of

magical thinking,

a kind of thinking tethered to a fantasy of a superior people, a kind of thinking unhinged from the truth and reality,

where 'meritocracy' is not a dream but a dog whistle, blown and blustered, to deny human beings any universal right to exist,

in Ate's name. 

No Gods Before Ate

When being offensive pretends to be demure - or being virulent pretends to be benign - or being barbarous pretends to be civil -

what is this? and why?

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When a war is fought with bombs and famine, you know it is a war. You know that armed hostility seethes between you and peace. You know that now is no time to indulge in inaction.

But -

you also know -

bombs do not have to be bombs to be bombs and famine does not have to be famine to be famine.

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In other words -

when a war is fought with bombs and famine, you know it is a war - even when, say, bombs assume an imposture of demure purity, famine assumes an imposture of benign virtue, and denials of peace assume an imposture of civilized generosity -

you know that what froths between you and amity, will not quit its antagonism - even when its animus is, oh, welcomed by acquiescence and appeasement.

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Because you know a war does not have to be a war to be a war.

Likewise, an armistice without a cessation of arms is not a healing ceasefire, despite a verbal cloaking of ordnances as threatless friends.

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For real demure purity does not celebrate the blowing up of civilian economies and finances, urban medical services and rural health care, local safety nets, including band-aids against resource instability;

real benign virtue does not applaud the arbitrary and cutthroat denial of food security to children and veterans and seniors and homeless families;

real civilized generosity does not praise acts of vengeance and seizures of spoils as acts of love that must be suffered for billionaire victors.

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As if death knells, in Ate's name, with sublime joy.

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When being offensive or being virulent or being barbarous

emphatically insists this is the very definition of being fair and being reasonable and being nothing more than common sense -

I ask -

when did offense become fair to you? virulence become reasonable to you? barbarity become nothing less than common sense to you?

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Never.

Because -

when it is you, subjected to offense or virulence or barbarity, this fuels a lived experience defined by grievances -

your truth and your reality -

until your answer to what is this? and why? becomes the promise and hope of a 'meritocracy' that is not a meritocracy.

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The promise and hope of a kind of human invention, a narrative that untethers what you believe from what is real, to say 'merit' does not have to be glorious to be glorified.

In other words -

words without merit do not have to be commendable to be commended; intentions without merit do not have to be honorable to be honored; actions without merit do not have to be admirable to be admired; etc.

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Because you know a 'meritocracy' doesn't have to be a meritocracy to be a meritocracy.

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Never mind

a real meritocracy does not celebrate impulsive wreckers gleefully feeding safety nets to literal shredders, because wasteful efficiency is genius;

a real meritocracy does not applaud punching down, because unimpeachable bullying is a superior people's manifestly destined right;

a real meritocracy does not praise low hanging fruits or trifling crumbs or witless polemics, smugly gilded with infirm promises that suffering for the cause will be absolutely worth it.

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Obviously.

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When acts of love that must be suffered for billionaire victors

are part and parcel to a kind of thinking disunited from the truth and reality,

this is neither tough love nor real love nor fatherly love nor divine love;

this is not love at all.

Note

Ate (mythology, here at Wikipedia)

M

A Mockery of Fools

When a face of counterfeit innocence and inauthentically benign conviviality, if not a pretense of benevolence and imposture of prudence, is supposed to be trusted, despite a firehose of actual, manifest, and real proof and evidence that such face is a tool, advanced with a smirk and a mockery -

what does that even mean: "a face is supposed to be trusted"?

A Mockery of Fools

There is a kind of disinformation that dwells behind a mask of -

"Look what I'm doing for you. Isn't it great? Everybody thinks I'm great. Except losers. Losers hate me. But that's okay. Losers aren't great, and I'm a generous winner. I like everybody. Don't you agree? Look how I'm making everything better for everybody. Even losers. Aren't I the best? I think so, and I'm not the only one. Very smart people think I'm the best. Very rich people, too. Everything was terrible, terrible for you when losers were in charge. But now I'm here. Now a winner's running it all. See?" -

a dissembling that insists only somebody deranged would doubt, a deceit that proclaims only somebody disloyal would question, a distortion that vows only somebody demonic would challenge -

what lies behind a mask.

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Because there is a kind of fiction in how people appear versus who people are. Because there is a kind of dishonesty in (1) saying one thing but thinking something else; (2) saying one thing but intending something else; and (3) saying one thing but doing something else.

Because a lie is not worn on the sleeve like a heart.

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So the doubling down on the integrity of mask-wearing by mask-wearers is a kind of saying mask-wearing by mask-wearers is really, in fact, being real.

In defiance of reality.

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Likewise, the doubling down on the innocuousness of what is said by mask-wearers is a kind of saying when people speak, they must not be heard literally. Because such people require translators and mouthpieces and surrogates with astounding proficiency in mask-speech in order that they be authoritatively represented without mistake.

Never mind that mask-speech is not a thing. Which is to say, mask-speech is not real.

When translators and mouthpieces and surrogates own the "authoritative" understanding of what is said, loudly aloud, mind you, this is a kind of narrative that obligates people to lobotomize their common sense and reason

to swallow dumpster trucks of bullshit.

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Moreover, the doubling down on the incorruptibility of what is intended by mask-wearers is a kind of defensive recitation of an ostensibly canonical banality, that the inner goodness and decency of people is above reproach. Such that any skepticism, or perceived attack, of such people's noble and fair intentions is demonized as ungracious and sinister.

As if the innermost reality of people is not only pure and just, but divinely knit and sacred. Not because mortal internal landscapes are perfectly stainless, but because mask-wearers' ostensibly innate flawlessness

is impervious to fingers that penetrate holes that prove or disprove what's bleeding or what's leading anyway.

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Until the doubling down on the legitimacy of what is done by mask-wearers is a kind of explicit complicity.

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Case in point:

there is a kind of confederacy that dwells behind a mask of -

"Look, I am a card-carrying member of an institution that demands my blind and wholesale loyalty. That means your concerns are not my concerns, because I serve at the pleasure of an autocrat that rules the institution that I am a card-carrying member of.

I don't have to like it. You don't have to like it. But that is how the real world works." -

a denial of ruling in tandem with a public servant whose aspirations of a swampy swamp of their own swamp kind, of ring-kissing, boot-licking, belly-crawling, slinkers writhing in warmed-over and over-cooked joy,

is unbridled by guardrails, imaginary or otherwise;

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and there is a kind of corrosion that dwells behind a mask of -

"Look, it is not our mission to impede an institution that enforces blind and wholesale loyalty among its card-carrying members. In fact, when our interests and our causes, align, our... air of cooperation is vital to achieving our respective goals.

Whether you like it or not, that is how the real world works." -

a delusion of skulkers whose windmilling commitment to converting the disillusioned and disaffected by waltzing without a trifle of animus, arm-in-arm with slinkers in their villain era, never minds that

appeasement, by any other name, is brute submission.

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Needless to say, a lie is not worn on the sleeve like a heart,

when a lie is worn as a face.

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So I ask, in the end, if you

(1) say one thing but think something else; (2) say one thing but intend something else; and (3) say one thing but do something else;

are you somebody who is supposed to be real? divinely knit? trusted? is what lies behind your skin-deep-authenticity, the God's honest truth? or

am I a winner, sucker, nay, fool?

 

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When a lie is worn as a face

a coterie of trolls can become the "face" of a pseudo-meritocratic-ideology; an insignificant cadre of personalities can become the "face" of an autocratic-leviathan; a handful of millionaires and billionaires can become the "face" of a nation -

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when a lie is worn as a face

people can "be" who they pretend to be; people can "be" imposters of fairness, justness, and praiseworthiness; people can "be" liars who wear the face of verity -

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when a lie is worn as a face

credulity, heartfelt or Machiavellian, in a "spirit" of good faith, in the inner goodness and decency of people,

is how mask-wears mask-wear to effect, to "manifest", if you will, a kind of explicit complicity, with a smirk and a mockery of winners, suckers, nay, fools.

M

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Author's Note

But everybody lives in a bubble! No. Not really. Because really, everybody lives in the tangible, material, real world. A bubble is a kind of make believe where we do not live where we actually do.

As if an intangible, immaterial, imagined world is where we actually live.

smh

Here, we live where lies and liars all the way down, throw away the real world for a narrative, a kind of fiction where the so-called "meritorious" are imposters among us, 

pretenders, frauds, cons.

But if we are not who dwells behind a mask, a lie worn as a face, then we can say something better than nothing, we can intend something better than nothing, we can do something better than nothing:

we can be true.

Or.

We can double down on the legitimacy of what is done by mask-wearers, we can "manifest", if you will, like villain era bros and basic bitches, a kind of explicit complicity. Because a mockery of fools is not a mockery of us.

M

Real Anyway

It is not a mystery that believers believe... lies,

that followers follow... liars.

Because it is not a mystery that believers... believe,

that followers... follow.

What is true is not a mystery.

What is not true

is.

Real Anyway

A black hole could not fill the depth and breadth of all that is not true. Still, we scramble to fill every ounce and every inch of today as if tomorrow is a yesterday that never was.

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We don't know what a performer is planning to stage, now or later or never or soon...

so we muse.

We don't know what what an executive is planning to execute, now or later or never or soon...

so we speculate.

We don't know what a leader is planning to say or do, now or later or never or soon...

so we wonder.

*

Because we know, we really know: performers and executives and leaders lie. Such that performers and executives and leaders cannot be trusted to tell the truth, not really.

Because what is true is not a mystery,

is it?

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Too often, to solve a mystery, we muse and we speculate and we wonder. But this does not solve a mystery. This piles onto what is not true.

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So all the musing and speculating and wondering in the world, solves nothing. To solve a mystery, our compass must point without fear, unerringly towards what is true.

That is not what believers believe or who followers follow. Because what believers believe and who followers follow is too often,

a black hole of all that is not true.

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Still, how... diversionary, infinite invention, how... banal, to be lied to in real time. As though the joke is neither what believers believe nor who followers follow, but

lies and liars all the way down,

hahahahahahaha.

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Never mind: this is not only true, this is not funny.

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We don't know what a somebody or a nobody is planning, now or later or never or soon... we don't know what a stranger or a neighbor is planning, now or later or never or soon... but we do know what we are planning, now and later and never and soon.

Because we know

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we are not a mystery

knit of what is not true. And

if we know that, then we know

the compass that must point unerringly towards what is true, 

points to ourselves.

Because we know

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what is not true... is not real anyway.

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What is not true... is a mystery. It is both bottomless and endless... the depth and breadth of all that is not true.

Because what is not true... is lies and liars all the way down.

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So while it is theoretically possible to know the truth as to what, say, an appointed jurist or an elected servant of the people or an official mouthpiece, for example, is planning to say or do, now or later or never or soon,

it is also theoretically possible to know that such appointed jurist and such elected servant of the people and such official mouthpiece are planning to dissemble and deceive and distort and disinform, now and later and always and soon enough.

Because we know

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what is true is not a mystery.

What is a mystery... is that a hypothetically immortal absolute sovereign endorses lies and liars all the way down. After all, what is not true... 

is not real anyway.

M

Unsaying a Yesterday That Never Was

I cannot say anything new. 

But for all that there is nothing new to say - our not-new words should not be un-said. For while we are silencing our dead-horse words, they are leaning into their done-and-buried words to make tomorrow - 

yesterday.

Unsaying a Yesterday That Never Was

I am in the habit of dragging horses to water and beating dead horses. Because I am in the habit of not letting shit go.

It is not a unique habit.

Though I have been maligned for it as though it was my failing and mine alone.

Hah.

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Case in point:

people in the habit of dusting off done-and-buried words to make tomorrow - a yesterday that never existed.

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Let me unpack that:

Some people cannot be bothered to see something new. 

Maybe they grew up valorizing the not-new. Or they grew to despise the new. Or they grew a rapacious appetite for using whatever 'they had' (i.e. valorizing and despising) to get whatever they didn't. 

Regardless, these people do not dismiss the not-new as obsolete and worthless; these people fossilize the not-new as infinitely useful.

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Done-and-buried words give a vibe of impotence and irrelevance to the perennially obsessed with new, people who cannot bear to acknowledge something not-new.

Maybe they grew up idolizing the new. Or they grew to deride the not-new. Or they grew a rapacious ambition for using whatever 'they had' (i.e. idolizing and deriding) to get whatever they didn't.

Regardless, to these people, only the future lives; the past is dead and gone.

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From a sequel to the Inquisition to a sequel to Jim Crow, there is something not-new to champion.

From science fiction to make believe, there is something new to advance.

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Meanwhile, yesterday's tomorrow is today. And when

yesterday's tomorrow promised to be a faithful sequel to a yesterday that never existed except as a fairy tale:

yesterday was not when people were bamboozled by something new. Yesterday was when people embraced done-and-buried words, exactly as their predecessors embraced done-and-buried words, yesterday and yesterday and yesterday and yesterday.

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Because dragging horses to water and beating dead horses, that is, not letting shit go, is not my failing and mine alone.

Is it?

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It is sometimes called a "playbook", when something not-new is used today, to make tomorrow yesterday.

It is so much so, not a unique habit, that it is named as such; a "playbook", hoar-worn and time-tested, cannot be anything but

not special. 

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When done-and-buried words "promise" a mythic narrative, this is neither a "saying something new" nor a "doing something new". This is exactly what was done yesterday and yesterday and yesterday and yesterday, to champion a faithful sequel to

a fiction.

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Because a lie that wears every face of Janus and every head of the Gorgons, is infinitely useful. Because a yesterday that never was, is what people elect when not letting shit go is

the hill they will die on.

M