Hello Darkness

 The mistake I made was thinking more Americans were good than bad. In my rare moment of optimism and hope, I was wrong.

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
~ H.L. Mencken, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

Not just a moron—a poisonously hateful, desperately insecure, preening, zero self-awareness moron. We elected the Dunning-Kruger effect made flesh and he’ll have the nuclear codes. 

Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.
~ Vladimir Lenin 

Liberty and freedom are for wealthy white men—the rest of us are fucked. I wonder how long it’ll take for Roy and Rita Redneck to realize they’ve been had. How will they cope after the incoming moron administration kills the ACA and Medicare? Will they snap out of their delusions when their kids die of measles, mumps, polio, flu, COVID, etc.? Health insurance will be financially out of reach for them too. They’ll die, just like me. The difference is that they voted to do this to themselves.

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them.
~ Bertrand Russell, New Hopes for a Changing World

And this, mes amis, is Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, J.D. Couchfucker, Elise Stefanik, Tom Cotton and so many others. They all managed to attend elite universities and should absolutely know better but they spout the stupidest, motherfucking nonsense. Why? They’re pandering to those less intelligent who hold their prejudices, insecurities, and bigotries tight, like protective shields. Why? It’s an easy path to riches. Gull the rubes and you don’t have to work hard for fame and wealth, vacays in Cancun, and big houses in fancy neighborhoods.

People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.
~ Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.
~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.
~ Naomi Shulman

How can I be a part of the resistance? I’m a late-deafened woman who needs a walker to get around. I’m still unable to walk more than three eighths of a mile at a time. How can I protect myself and my loved ones from the incoming administrations mondo greed, intellectual incontinence, and extreme criminality? I WILL find a way.

I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Sound of Silence—Paul Simon