Fasci-nistas

Has anyone else noticed that while we're busy staying focused on all the homophobia behind the thinking of militarists like McCain and Jolly-Ollie North, the "grand issue" over repeal of DADT, in their minds, is not anyone's rights, or who is getting shat upon, but rather, the pristine preservation, at any cost, of the biggest wehrmacht, er, war machine in the world.

Ollie and Johnnie would've been right at home in ancient Rome or in Albert Speer's world capital, "Germania", where preservation of the Party and the State superceded any "collateral damage", which includes people, that might be incurred along the way.

They both envision a perpetually armed and alert America, prepared at a moments notice to spend every dollar and expend every life to impose our will on an unwilling world. They, like the Pentagon, argue that we must always be ready to fight the last war, even as we fail, miserably, to find solutions to our current ones.

They would call this "patriotism." I, of course, would call it Fascism. Unlike them, I picture an America at peace, not perpetually at war.

They picture an America steeped in ignorance, intolerance and war-mongering. I picture an America steeped in love, compassion and forgiveness.

Okay... which of those is the “Christian” view?

Arizona - Land of Lily-White Rich Republicans

I moved to Seattle from Delaware in the fall of 1976.  It very quickly became apparent the various ways in which the West was and is different from the East.

The West is the land of the rugged individualist (read:  misfit loaner who's a danger to himself and others).  The West is the land of live and let live (as long as you live the way everybody else does OR keep your big trap shut about how you actually do live).  The West is the land of tolerance (bullshit).

I went to work for a couple of rugged individualists in Seattle.  Father and son were sole proprietors of a thriving electronics supply company which ran a string of marine electronics repair shops all around the Gulf of Alaska, from Juneau to Adak, in the Aleutian chain.

On the surface they were nice guys.  But underneath... the son was the chairman of the Reagan for President committee in Washington State (did I mention, this was 1976-77?).   He believed in the western ideal of rugged individualism --- he also believed that as long as you worked for him, he pretty much owned you.  One day he dictated that NO EMPLOYEE could smoke... on company property or off it and anyone caught smoking would be frozen in salary and position until they quit (smoking or their job).

He also made it abundantly clear that he wanted all employees to join a gym.  The one he belonged to.

It was about this time that I started noticing the abundance of bumper stickers around town, celebrating something called The John Birch Society.  Something about him being the first casualty of the next World War -- or some bullshit like that.

I didn't last long in the rugged Pacific Northwest.  I hated working for Fascists, so I decided to move to the most liberal city I knew, New York City.

But I never forgot that stint in Seattle.  I never forgot how they mouthed a bunch of platitudes about the freedom of the individual, even as they dictated the terms of conformity.  As far as I was concerned they were a bunch of hypocrites.

Now, of course, we have Arizona or, as I like to call it, Deutschland.  It is my understanding that the State Police (der Staatspolizei) are being signed up for Rosetta Stone beginner's courses in German so that they can rattle off "Dürfen wir ihre papiere, bitte?" ("May we see your papers, please?") like a native.  This will come in handy in the days and weeks ahead, as they round up brown people, queers, Jews, and anybody who doesn't look like either their governor (Terence Stamp in "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert") or John "I'm No Maverick" McCain.

I encourage all patriots, by which I mean anybody not from Arizona, to boycott Arizona businesses until this Fascist charade is overturned.