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. 

*

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.

*

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.

*

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.

*

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.

More

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.

*

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.

*

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'.

*

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? 

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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?

*

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.

*

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.

*

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.

*

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.

*

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

*

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?

*

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.

*

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.

*

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

*

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.

*

Obviously.

*

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