On one hand, I\u2019m thrilled that more people are using public transportation.\u00a0 Not because I\u2019m a supporter of the environment.\u00a0 I\u2019m very much the opposite, in fact.\u00a0 I support a ruined Earth and a dying civilization, simply because I think it\u2019ll be mildly entertaining and break up the tedium of my life.\u00a0 I\u2019m thrilled because I think trains are nifty.\u00a0 I might even say neaty-o.\u00a0 Neatarific.\u00a0 Most neat indeed.
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However, more people on public transport in America isn\u2019t really a good thing because, as far as I can tell, except for filling a few potholes and changing the tires, America\u2019s infrastructure hasn\u2019t seen any major improvements since 1956.\u00a0 We\u2019re kind of like a strangely functional pre-EU, post-Eastern Bloc nation.\u00a0 Romania circa 1995, except we\u2019ve actually paved our roads and there are no pits leading to open sewers in our city sidewalks.\u00a0 Well, at least not in the parts of the cities where white people live.<\/p>\n
I often compare modern America to the final days of the Roman Republic, and the amateur historian in me is always perturbed when people compare us to the final days of the Empire.\u00a0 Hearing that immediately labels the person saying it as an ignorant fuck.\u00a0 But, in truth, it\u2019s a little of both.<\/p>\n
Politically and socially speaking, we\u2019re right on track with the final days of the Republic.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got the two dominant parties that are just about equal \u2013 the modern day answer to the urban versus the rural landholder voting patterns (which is a gross oversimplification of Roman and modern American politics, but holds true if you don\u2019t think about it too much).\u00a0 Though the two parties pretend at being different, the truth is that, no matter who we vote for, everything is carefully crafted to make sure that like-minded oligarchs are always in control.\u00a0 Even when we promote \u201cchange\u201d candidates like Obama, there\u2019s no real change.\u00a0 You know when there\u2019s a real change candidate around, because they get picked off.\u00a0 Either violently, like RFK, or passively, like McGovern.\u00a0 (Maybe \u201cweirdly\u201d is a better way to describe McGovern\u2019s demise.)<\/p>\n
Though Obama\u2019s true value is in having a black man take office \u2013 the token minority president.\u00a0 RFK told us we\u2019d have a black man in the White House within 40 years, so we have to do it now or else we\u2019ll set blacks in America back 40 years.\u00a0 Which is the last thing they need.\u00a0 I think American blacks have just about caught up to 1968.\u00a0 It\u2019s taken the American psyche since then to fully get over the fact that black people are allowed to sit at the lunch counter.\u00a0 God knows what the next step is.\u00a0 I would say accepting them as human beings, but the nationwide gentrification of our cities and relocation of urban blacks to suburban reservations sort of stops that from coming to pass.<\/p>\n
So our politics are a sham.\u00a0 Economically, there\u2019s a huge gap.\u00a0 We\u2019d all be poor and struggling if not for credit cards.\u00a0 We\u2019re tied up in a forever war.\u00a0 It\u2019s Republic all the way.\u00a0 Another few decades like this, and we\u2019ll be glad for a lunatic dictator to come along.\u00a0 But don\u2019t think that Bush is Caesar.\u00a0 I hate people who make that comparison.\u00a0 First off, Caesar might just be what we need.\u00a0 We got it once, in modern politics, with FDR, and that was a good thing.\u00a0 We need to watch out for the truly bloodthirsty dictators, and Bush is nowhere near that level.\u00a0 Iraq is a weird sideshow compared to Vietnam.\u00a0 I don\u2019t care what anyone says — Bush is a trained ape compared to Nixon, who may very well have been our Sulla.\u00a0 We\u2019re in a middle period now, and somewhat rudderless.\u00a0 Which is unsettling for the rest of the world, because we\u2019re a decaying superpower.\u00a0 Sadly, our middle period appears to have longevity.\u00a0 Obama’s hopeless, and what the hell is McCain?<\/p>\n
Yet, despite mirroring the Roman Republic, it really feels like an empire breaking apart, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Our soldiers are the poor and the crazy, and largely running wild.\u00a0 We supplement them with private paramilitary groups, the modern day version of letting the barbarians settle on imperial land, and slowly become absorbed into an armed forces that believes itself to be above the law.\u00a0 The civilians are numbed and self-loathing.\u00a0 Everything has stagnated.\u00a0 Outside influences \u2013 most notably in the form of corporations, American-based or not \u2013 have a stranglehold on politics, finances, and culture.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the aged and inadequate infrastructure, the gross negligence to our social needs (also a feature of the latter Republic before Caesar), and the loss of Pax Americana.\u00a0 That\u2019s been going on worldwide since the fall of the Soviets, but the vague lawlessness is starting to show up at home.\u00a0 Crime may be down, thanks to that gentrification and homogenized PC culture that both our political parties have so fervently strived to create since 1972, but it\u2019s not down across the board.\u00a0 Those black reservations are left to rot, and the remaining impoverished areas of our cities continue to be uneducated cesspools of hatred, fear, and violence.<\/p>\n
But, you know, we white folk, and our client races, don\u2019t really care as long as the path is clear to Harris Teeter or Whole Foods. And, with gas prices dropping, life couldn\u2019t be better.\u00a0 Even with a black man running for the presidency, America is just as racist and insane.\u00a0 Dear Palin has even called Obama \u201cSambo<\/a>.\u201d (I don’t trust that blogger…but I think it’s no stretch to see Palin as a racist fuckhole.)\u00a0 Despite all the muck surrounding all the candidates, it really does boil down to race.\u00a0 We\u2019re voting for either a black man, or the white elite, or just an anti-black protest vote.\u00a0 So keep that in mind when they tally up the numbers.\u00a0 The tens of millions going for McCain, win or lose, are just a breath away from gleefully posing for the camera beneath the lynching tree.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not saying we must vote for Obama.\u00a0 I don\u2019t care.\u00a0 But McCain is a laughingstock.\u00a0 Any Republican with a brain should vote Bob Barr, or Mickey Mouse, even.\u00a0 In fact, wouldn\u2019t it be awesome if a write-in Mickey Mouse won against Obama?\u00a0 Now that would truly be a stick in the eye.\u00a0 McCain winning would just be pathetic and sad, but a fictional character winning will start a revolution and mark the end of the Democrat party.<\/p>\n In fact, I\u2019ll vote Mickey Mouse with you.<\/p>\n I\u2019m off topic, I think.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember what my topic was.\u00a0 Chiefly complaining about how DC\u2019s public transportation system sucks and has always sucked and will continue to do so, even after waiting a decade for them to build connecting light rail lines and transit centers because, duh, our entire transportation network is designed to bring people from suburban bedroom communities into the city even though that formula never worked, and started to reverse in the 80\u2019s.\u00a0 It\u2019s not like the urbanization of the suburbs is a surprise that happened yesterday.\u00a0 It\u2019s all been carefully thought out and planned by a cabal of developers who have patiently charted the urbanization and gentrification of the city and suburbs on an exhaustive 40 year timeline.\u00a0 Yet have failed to take the people into account.\u00a0 I wonder if playing with Lego\u2019s has polluted the last three generations?\u00a0 Build the skyscrapers\u2026but there aren\u2019t any people there.\u00a0 Well, maybe three or four\u2026who stick to the ground and never fucking move and are always a comfortable yellow color and ever-smiling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On one hand, I\u2019m thrilled that more people are using public transportation.\u00a0 Not because I\u2019m a supporter of the environment.\u00a0 I\u2019m very much the opposite, in fact.\u00a0 I support a ruined Earth and a dying civilization, simply because I think …<\/p>\n