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.

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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.

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.

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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'.

*

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?

*

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.

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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.

*

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?

*

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.

*

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.

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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.

*

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.

*

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.

*

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;

*

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.

*

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

when a lie is worn as a face.

*

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