The Big Lie

Posted on July 26, 2018 by gumbywan

Propaganda Ministers

Josef Goebbels was actually the mastermind behind selling the Final Solution to the world. After WWII started for real Hitler rarely appeared in public. He didn’t want to take any questions. He didn’t want the media attention. He was so popular, he didn’t want to get his head blown off. He didn’t like “fake news” about Germany.

“All this was inspired by the principle—which is quite true within itself—that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.

It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.” – Mein Kampf

Basically, ignorant people will believe the big lie because it is so outrageous they couldn’t imagine themselves telling the same, or another equivalently outrageous, big lie. Goebbels thought that he could not only sucker his own people with the Big Lie, but also the British and they would come around to the Nazi way of thinking about the Jews. But the Brits didn’t buy the Big Lie, well they actually did once, but fool me twice, I don’t think so.

Now add fifty pounds, lose the hat, add a string of pearls, lipstick, and a dress to Goebbels and we have the current Propaganda Minister Sarah Sanders Huckabee. Huckabee. Ring a bell? Former Propaganda Minister Sean Spicer (SS) couldn’t keep telling the big lies with a straight face, or admitting that he didn’t have a clue about what to say, so we got SSH. SS, remember that. Oh wait, that was HH, Heinrich Himmler. Never mind…. There are so many parallels it is uncanny. These people claim to be good Christians and they lie, lie lie. What about those Ten Commandments?

Anyway, apparently certain reporters aren’t going to be allowed in the Rose Garden anymore because they ask the Comb Over questions he doesn’t want to answer, or can’t answer, or he can’t sell the Big Lie effectively anymore. So, Propaganda Minister SS Huckabee is now going to be more the face of the Reich since she can regurgitate the Big Lie effectively with a straight face, argue with reporters, expel the media, stomp on the First Amendment, etc. Today the Comb Over supposedly took the limo instead of Marine One to Air Force One because of the weather. Fog. No reports of fog in DC today. Remember when I told you about helicopters and the Comb Over way back in 2013? The Big Lie.

Immigration

Posted on July 7, 2018 by gumbywan

Trump-and-Hitler

I used to try to make this blog somewhat entertaining, back in those days when life wasn’t yet so serious. I’d talk about TV programmes, professional wrestling, seniors driving, and sometimes the odd important issue, but still try to make it light and lively. Satire they call it. Well dear reader, the end times have come. The thing everybody said could never happen here happened here. The Comb Over on late night TV is not funny. Hitler on late night TV is not funny. Laugh now, but you won’t be laughing when they come for you. Get ready for the party to end. Bad hangover if you even wake up. Ever seen the film Cabaret? Well we’re living it. Money makes the world go ’round.

Now that I’ve re-started this blog again I don’t know where to start. There are so many untold truths. Maybe I’ve waited too long. But you’ve got to start somewhere. Bite size as they say.

So, let’s start with what I call the last straw. Images, sounds, of children wailing, desperately trying to memorize phone numbers in another language. Pictures of cages with children in them. Is this Bavaria in 1936? No, it’s Texas in the 21st century. Sounds like an alternate history sf novel kinda. Well, if you like that sort of thing, you’re living it now. Enjoy the ride into future history. The Comb Over has legitimized the incarceration of families, of human beings, people no different than you or I just born in another place and, seeking a better life for themselves and their loved ones. Look up the word Objectification, Look up Dehumanize. Do you think if this had been 1936 without social media that it would have stopped on its own? America was always about the hope of a better future for ourselves but even more so for our children and future generations.

Philosophically I’m socially Libertarian. I generally approve of unfettered immigration. Come on over everybody let’s have a party! There’s room in this house for everyone! That’s how America became the greatest nation it was. Invite don’t discourage. What if you hadn’t been born with the silver spoon that is American citizenship and white skin in this world? A fate you never deserved or asked for, just given, not as a right but as a fact of random chance?

Sure you get the bad with the good, but the chances are so small it’s ridiculous. Do you think that your chances of being victimized by MS-13 or Islamic Fundamentalism is so great that we should lock the door and hunker down with our guns and goods? Your chances of being killed by terrorists or cartels is less than falling down the stairs or in a traffic accident because of our lousy roads. Where are the sensible priorities? You are being victimized by the fear of bad statistics and bad science. A symptom of our failure to provide a decent education to our electorate. Besides Law Enforcement was supposed to take care of those things before it became the slave of the militarization of the War on Drugs. And sensible gun control would also take care of a lot of it. Those are other topics but I’ll have to save those for another time or this would get too long for the average State News, er, I mean, Fox News consumer. See I still throw in the odd one liner.

What the haves (Ubermensch) will not tell you is they want to let just enough of the “right” ones in to protect the white rich society; the Roman lifestyle they all live, and fool you into thinking you can aspire to in life, while keeping wages low and any talk of human rights and decency out of the equation. Healthcare, Shelter, decent living standards. These would put too much of a burden on “society” and ruin the economy. C’mon folks stop being swindled by the lies.

I’ll give you one last tidbit to ponder, not about immigration but even you will figure it out. Look up something called the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact between Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union. Now change the names to Trump, Vladimir Putin, and just for good measure throw in Kim Jong Un as Benito Mussolini. Hey, I think I’ve seen this film before…. Those who fail to heed their history are doomed to repeat it. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Blind acceptance is a sign of stupid fools who stand in line. Anger IS an energy.

If only CBS, or CNN, or anybody for that matter would point these things out I wouldn’t have to sit here over my vintage computer and I could get a low paying, benefits and pension free job in the New Economy and rest easy at night…. Satire.

Oh, by the way that’s not Hitler at the top but another nice guy from the 1940s trying to make America, er I mean Germany, great again. He poisoned himself, his wife, and all his children in the end. We should be so lucky. Sorry about the wife and kids tho.

The Comb Over (Part 2)

Posted on July 6, 2018 by gumbywan

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Yes blessed friends I’m back. And better than ever. It is my sad duty to have to exercise my First Amendment Rights as an American in order to inform you that The Comb Over is Adolf Hitler with orange hair. 45th President of the United States. If there ever was a sign of the decline of western civilization Donald Trump is it. I told you the parallels were eerie: a leader treated by the political and media establishment as a buffoon, a dimwit outsider and an “it can’t happen here,” lazy intellectual attitude on the part of an ignorant electorate due to a shabby school system kidnapped by Tea Party Christian Right Wing White Republicans in favor of charter, voucher, home school, and just plain minimal investment in the education of our future (our children). Then there is the Big Lie. Then there is the manipulation of liberal democracy by Billionaires and the Soviet Union, er, I mean Russia. I will prove to you in these bitter pages that to vote for a Republican now is to vote for the Nazi Party, Der Fuhrer. Wait and see. It will all become crystal clear.

Where to start? Maybe at the end. The separation and caging of refugee children was the last straw. Where was the last place we saw families divided and sent off to “detention” camps when they came to a new country? Do I have to spell it out for you? You watch the History Channel, right? My father fought to liberate people from concentration camps. Almost died in The Battle of the Bulge. Am I gonna sit here and watch the same thing happen to the Red, White, and Blue? I’m disgusted, appalled. Crying children. My country? Cages. I’m ashamed to call myself American.

ICE. Jack-booted storm troopers. Sometimes you just walk away from your job because it is too repulsive, inhumane. You say “I won’t be a part of this.” Patriots just doing their jobs? So were the SS men in Dachau. Study the banality of evil. They say they’ll use DNA to match the right children with their families. What’s that about? Like parents won’t recognize their own children? Why do we need to match DNA? If this doesn’t sound creepy to you, you aren’t paying attention.

How many times have you heard someone ask “if you were back in Nazi Germany would you have participated in the Holocaust?” The answer is inevitably, “No I would have resisted.” Liars, every one of you.

The time for conversation is over. There is no such thing as “good people on both sides” when the Confederate flag is displayed. How would you feel if they put up a statue honoring Erwin Rommel and you were Jewish? Stone Mountain, Georgia. How does an African American feel about that monument?

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On today’s menu is Scott Pruitt Gauleiter of the Environmental Protection Agency. He resigns after disemboweling 50 years of environmental protection for the planet. Talk about putting the fox in the hen house. A lifestyle considered lavish even by Imperial Roman standards on my/your dime while you scrabble to get health insurance, he resigns not in shame, but in having done a “good” job. I’m sure there is a CEO/Lobbyist job he doesn’t need waiting for him in the Energy Sector somewhere. Probably the Koch brothers. Who knows. Presidential Pardon.

Enough for today. I’ll get back to you tomorrow. I have so much more to say….

Doctor Crap?

Posted on August 24, 2014 by gumbywan

Somewhere in the David Tennant era the train came off the tracks. It started to be about romance, too many episodes were on earth, there were too many folks following the Doctor around and related to him, too much self-reference to previous lives and eras, too many people actually saying “Doctor Who?” out loud. Too few good stories. Steven Moffat took control and things really got awful. In the last few years I can only think of a handful of episodes I really enjoyed. I think the Doctor actors have come off pretty well as characters, but especially Matt Smith was fed almost nothing but crap for scripts. He did as well as he could.

If you go back to the first era the series really petered out during the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy Doctors. BBC screwed up the franchise then with poor writers and poor choices for Doctors seeing it still as a children’s program with little potential beyond that, and it’s on the verge now. Similar to what NBC did to Star Trek in the ’60s. Capaldi is a good choice for an actor but somebody has to hand him a bloody script.

Doctor What?

You cannot save this by bringing back the Daleks to menace the earth once again. How many times have we seen that? Quit bringing back “beloved” characters from previous episodes, eras, without some original and exciting writing to go with it. Piss on the romance. It was always about affection not romance. A certain amount of sexual tension is good until outright romance jumps the shark; a grasping at simpering sentimentality instead of good writing.

The Current Problem?

I missed Dr. Who when it went off the air in 1989 and I miss it now.

Classic Doctor Who

Thomas Ligotti

Posted on August 15, 2014 by gumbywan

Thomas Ligotti is my kind of guy, sorta. He always expects the worst. He spends all his time worrying about how he’s going to suffer and die and expects that everyone else is just the same, except some of us are better at fooling ourselves about the outcome. That makes him mad. He thinks all the folks that don’t worry about dying and suffering are deceiving themselves and just distracting themselves with ideas of afterlives or just having a good time, you know, trying not to think about it. And he’s right, but these other folks are a whole lot happier than he is. Now we can see the real problem, sorta.

Ligotti has a big head, a really big head and that’s why he thinks about all these dreary things all the time instead of watching television or playing golf. He’s always talking about how consciousness and self awareness are a tragedy and a curse on humankind; a crappy adaptation that evolution sneaked in there. The thing he forgets is most people are really unconscious most of the time anyway, even when they’re not sleeping; they’re clueless about this kind of stuff, so why does he want to remind them and take them into his pity party? Leave them alone with their fairy tale lives. Don’t bring ’em down. Don’t rain on their parade. Not enough hobbies I guess. Not enough television. Not enough high speed internet downloading those “short films.”

Well what’s Ligotti’s answer? Don’t have any kids. That’s it. What, you say? That makes him feel better about things? Yeah, his basic argument is that by having kids we doom all the future generations to the suffering and death we have so we shouldn’t have any: antinatalism they call it. Let the species die out. Well if Ligotti had any kids he wouldn’t be worrying about his great grandbaby’s suffering, he’d be worrying about his own suffering trying to deal with his own kids, getting them through college and boyfriends, etc. I bet his parents suffered plenty with him. Forget about future generation’s suffering. Besides his kids would be the kind that would suffer because all the bullies would rag them about their egghead dad.

I think his problem maybe is really low testosterone and therefore low sperm count. He isn’t gettin’ it on enough. Only those coffin chicks would even consider hangin’ out with him he’s so dreary and down. He needs to jerk it more too, take some of the tension and pressure off it. He can’t have kids so he wants us to join him. Sour grapes.

Ligotti writes a horror story about once every decade or so, when he isn’t feeling sorry for himself and the rest of us. They’re pretty good, but enigmatic. Now I don’t expect you to understand a word like that, nor a story like that, because you are correctly spending your time feeling good and not worrying about future generation’s suffering or how the joke’s on us. Stay away from funerals. Hide the razorblades.

Sure, we’re all going to step off the pier sometime, but why waste any time thinking about that? Remember I told you to always expect the worst, so now that that’s over let’s move on to feelin’ good.

I’ve given you all the prescription you need in this blog to quit thinking about that dirt nap: TV, NCIS, loud music, giant monster movies, malt liquor. So, mix up some cocktails and turn on the wide screen to some NCIS and put a Chuck Berry record on that stereo set ’cause we’re goin’ out with a buzz in our heads and a smile on our faces.

What’s so bad about feelin’ good for the rest of your miserable little life?

Siamo Innocenti

Posted on February 13, 2014 by gumbywan

Okay, here we go. My subtext today is pissing off European Italians, so if you think this might offend you, go away now!

Once again the Italian justice system has shown how screwed up it is by convicting Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito of the murder of Meredith Kercher for a second time, after being found innocent in-between! I’m not sure what political agenda is involved in this other than Europeans, specifically Italian Europeans, who see this as a way to once again bash Americans. What sort of pastafazoole is it that keeps retrying a person already found innocent? Is the Italian criminal justice system as faulty as their government?

Anyone who has followed this nightmare knows that the Italians already have the murderer in jail. There are so many detailed descriptions of how the murder actually went down and how non-existent the evidence against Knox and her then boyfriend is (plus the lack of any motive). The Italian justice system tried to portray Knox and her boyfriend as some sort of drug crazed maniacs. Look at the videos from the crime scene, do those look like hung-over drug crazed maniacs?

Now the Italians are trying to extradite Amanda from the US. If the United States buys into this spaghetti farce it will simply go to show once again that the US justice system is just as messed up as the Italian justice system is. Besides, when have we ever listened to foreigners, especially ones that don’t live here, much less let them tell us what to do.

I’m sure that most Italians also think this whole thing is a load of ravioli stuffing but the lawyers, judges, and politicians involved with this thing, plus anyone who is just in this as an American hater, isn’t fit to even be a spaghetti bender.

Happy New Year (Always expect the worst)

Aside

I’ve got a holiday treat for you tonight as you ring out the worst year you’ve ever had and look forward to more bad news in 2014.

Hide the Razorblades

Shunned

Posted on November 16, 2013 by gumbywan

It seems I’ve been shunned, cast into the dust bin of the blogoshphere. This isn’t to be unexpected. Great minds have always been unrecognized in their lifetimes and the fact that I warn you, the 50% that are below average, off the most important and mind expanding posts, for your own good I might add, just makes it harder to be heard and appreciated.

Maybe it is because so many of you have taken my advice and devoted your life to not caring about anything, always expecting the worst, and a D minus effort. Maybe your spouse is pushing cheeseburgers under your locked bedroom door as you watch endless reruns of NCIS from your 11 season BluRay DVD collection. Perhaps you’ve discarded your cell phone and landline and your internet connection to take yourself off the grid so the NSA cannot peep on your miserable little life. You’ve given up that daily torture ritual you called fitness and sold your Nautilus machine and stationary bike and canceled your gym membership. This means you’ve taken my advice to heart. Maybe I should be glad I get so few hits and that your apathy is a testament to my persuasiveness.

I should have expected this; taken my own advice and expected the worst (for me personally). At least you have lightened my load and I can quit doing all the heavy lifting here as you tell the friends that wonder what happened to you, why they never see you, about your new, better, lifestyle. Perhaps this whole thing has gone viral but in a non-digital way, by old fashioned word of mouth.

I feel better now knowing that you have ceased to care that the Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges never work or that another government shutdown is looming in a few months, or that the Philippines are under water . This means I’ve done my job making your life just a little better and that in turn makes my life just a little better as well.

Keep up the D minus effort and we’ll all make it to the grave just a little bit less stressed out.

I’m Here For You

Posted on November 6, 2013 by gumbywan

A lot of people blog because they have a big ego and think tens of thousands of people out there are going to hang on their every word. They want people to nod their heads for every opinion they write about. They want comments about how brilliant and how oh so right they are. They think everyone wants to look into their private psychoses and their dreary website and affirm their useless digital scribblings. It’s all about me, me, me…

Well this blog is different, it’s all about you, you, you. I’m here for you. I’ve got your back. What other blogger warns you off some posts while putting others out there that you know will improve your life? Don’t some posts seem to have been written just for you personally? Huh? Do you think I’d sit here punching this keyboard if I didn’t feel an urgent social responsibility? I’ve got tons of episodes of NCIS on the DVR and I could be parking my lazy ass on the divan and enjoying the best TV program ever made. But no, I’m here trying to improve your miserable life, a complete stranger. That’s how big I am; a giving person, a servant.

Where You’ll End Up

Oh sure I have to use tough love sometimes and point out the deficiencies in you and your world but you know it’s for your own good. I don’t like doing it but somebody has to or you are going to end up on the trash heap of humanity. I worry about you all the time, especially the 50% of you that are below average. I stay up late trying to think of something that is going to stick in your little pea brain, that can pull you up from the desperate and hopeless state you are currently in.

Fairies and Rainbows

I try to temper these intense self-improvement posts with other posts of whimsy and carefree fun that will brighten your otherwise dreary day. I add the occasional important current event because I know you haven’t touched a newspaper in years and when you did all you cared about was what the Kardashians were doing. See these are all for your own good too. I spend a lot of time each and every day thinking about how to get through to you and improve your life just a little. I put all my needs aside to serve you, dear reader.

I’m Here for You!

Well I just wanted you to know that when the chips are down, like they always are for you, you can count on me. I wanted you to know I’m making more than a D minus effort for you. Whatever disaster comes into your world I’ll be putting all my resources into how best to deal with it and keep you from circling the drain. Think of me as the FEMA of bloggers, but in a better way that actually arrives in time and helps the afflicted.

Remember I’m here if you need me and I’m ready to make time for you day or night. Oh, and like I’ve told you before, lowered expectations are the key to a less than miserable life so just expect the worst and everything will be all right.

Fifty Shades of Despair

Posted on August 1, 2013 by gumbywan

I got this off the Huffington Post so don’t bitch to me about the factual quality. It was on the internet so it has to be true just like the advert says. It says the most requested book at Gitmo is not the Quran, but the BDSM 50 Shades of Grey series! That says a lot about the general reading public left in Gitmo and leads me into today’s essential rant: Why is Gitmo still open and who is still left there?

First of all the good news, the rehabilitation program in Gitmo has to be working at least a little. The reading level has turned from the Islamic terrorist’s number one inspirational tome to the same thing that your average WalMart knuckledragger reads. This in itself makes a strong argument for mainlining these guys back into society, even here on US soil. No doubt these former hate mongering berserkers are going to work for even less than your current enslaved class of illegal aliens, so even Republicans should support this. As long as they have a steady diet of strokebooks, “Housewives,” and Kardashian fare to feed them everything should be hunky dory. My sure fire easy solution for closing Gitmo. President Obama listen up!

My second rant, er, well reasoned argument is why is Gitmo such a hot potato? Why not just close it anyway and let them all go. Put them on the next bus for Guantanamera instead of Guantanamo. These few left can’t be that big a deal since we killed all the real bad guys already, haven’t we? I have a couple of other ideas. Why not just let ’em loose somewhere and let law abiding citizens exercise some second amendment rights. Kind of like that story “The Most Dangerous Game.” Now these guys go from America’s Most Wanted to Most Wanted Moving Target. Creates a new definition for the price of freedom.

Another humane act would be to just walk away and throw them the keys. Then it’s Castro’s headache not ours. Not bad. Again freedom always has its price. My last and maybe best idea is to just drop them off where they came from and make ’em drone bait. That’s right. Practice makes perfect so a few hundred guys running around in the desert should be like novice level video game stuff. If they only put me in charge.

Dec. 17 airpower summary: Reapers touch enemy forces

Drone

Anyway the last thing you want to do is try these guys in a military OR especially civilian court. Look at the costs? What if some get off, now what do you do? What if they sue in a civil court? More headaches. The worst outcome would be if some of these guys would actually look like innocent people you shouldn’t have thrown in some illegal dungeon without a trial. Who wants to open that can of worms and embarrass the government, congress, and the current and former presidents?

Bad Idea

Given the fact that maybe we can’t close Gitmo lets just distract people from it. We need a Gitmo “leaker;” one who will rat out the government on the whole rancid mess and become a traitorous scapegoat and distract everyone from the real problem. We can give him a free ride to some third world dictatorship where there is no extradition treaty, jerk his passport, and then wring our hands for months about how he jeopardized national security and agents and soldiers in the field. The intendant distraction will make Gitmo once again look like the high patriotic enterprise, essential to national security that it almost surely isn’t.

Well here again I’ve solved another big contemporary problem in about 10 different foolproof ways and I didn’t even spend that much time on it. When you have the brains I do even a Dminus effort looks brilliant.

I’m still working on that Television essay but the topic is so deep and important it’s taking a while. It is coming along nicely though. You won’t be disappointed.

Welcome to my dreary life…

Hide the razorblades…

Category Archives: despair