Goddammit, that’s it. As we head into this election the only thing clear to me is that fascism is a noxious weed, like dandelions or blackberries.  You can knock it down and think it’s gone, but it will be back. Seems that it’s really hard to get the roots of fascism, because those roots are the roots of capitalism.  Follow me here.

Capitalism is a system set up to have winners and losers. The form of capitalism we have is set up top have a small group of winners and literally Billions of losers. I’m sorry, you thought that was just a bug?  That’s a feature, not a flaw.

So you get a small group of winners with a huge amount of power (after all, money = power in capitalism) and combine that with the sad-but-true fact that people as a whole are dim witted and easily influenced.  Set to blend, and Presto Change-O!! Fascism.

Fascism is inevitable in a system like ours. It lurks around the edges like mold in our Northwestern window sills, just waiting for a chance to take root in our freshly washed towels, aka the nearest handy democracy. It is inevitable because those with the money and the power naturally tend to want to keep their position, so they try all sorts of tools to keep them in caviar and champagne.  Although most rich people will tell you they abhor the idea of fascism, their actions often tend to tell a different story.

Take the Koch Brothers. I honestly don’t think they want to have a fascist government.  I think they feel entitled to their wealth and will do whatever it takes to maintain their wealth and power.  So they came in and co-opted the Tea Party.  Suddenly a party founded on the idea that a huge bail-out of giant corporations is a bad thing have become the party of protecting the capital gains of the mega rich.  Capitalizing on the Tea Party’s demographic of middle aged white men quickly becoming  obsolete, these titans of industry have created a populist monster that is rising like a thistle patch in your crazy neighbor’s lawn, its thorny seeds taking root in all of the fertile ground in the neighborhood.

I don’t know how this will all wash out.  I don’t know if fascism will take firm root in the soil of the Great Experiment and threaten the stability of the world or if this is just the rise and fall of another edgy political epoch.  All I know is that the discourse is getting more and more polluted and the dim witted and easily influenced are becoming more confused and more desperate.  I can only pray we don’t end up on the losing end of another global program of noxious weed control.

I have stepped out of the blogging game for a while. I decided that there is enough hootin’ and hollerin’ out there without my acerbic and mercurial voice adding to the din.

Interestingly enough, my traffic has not changed since I stopped writing new content. Evidently I am fairly adept at naming my photo files, because a decent number of people come here to look at my photos. Bedbugs, bongs and gays. That is what my ‘audience’ seems to demand. I guess it’s better than brown bag ripple and meth.

I would be interested in collaborative efforts, whether it be on piece or a series, etc.

Also I’m an ordained minister, so if anyone would be interested at having me show up and berate them in my official capacity as arbiter of all that is moral, just let me know.

But for now you can probably find me at my favorite spot:

Are those crickets I hear
Chirping the night through
Or echoes I sense
Of what is left to do?

Image h/t to this guy, who stole it from someone else.

“O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will bless us with tears – tears for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS. Bless this nation with anger – anger at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Bless us with discomfort at the easy, simplistic answers we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth about ourselves and our world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future. Bless us with patience and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be fixed anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah. Bless us with humility, open to understanding that our own needs as a nation must always be balanced with those of the world. Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance, replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences. Bless us with compassion and generosity, remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable. And God, we give you thanks for your child, Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States. Give him wisdom beyond his years, inspire him with President Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for all people. Give him a quiet heart, for our ship of state needs a steady, calm captain. Give him stirring words; We will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead. Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States. Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims. Give him strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods. And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking far too much of this one. We implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand, that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity, and peace. Amen.”

Bishop Gene Robinson is my homeboy.

h/t Kevin @ Rumproast.