Let’s see….

So women, people of color, people with disabilities, people who are not Christian, or who are not USian, or who don’t look USian enough, or who stand out in some way that doesn’t read het, cis, white, TAB, middle class (or better) and male have been complaining about the TSA since it’s inception. Shut up and deal, it’s for your protection that the government 1) treats you like a criminal 2)violates the constitution 3)if you don’t do anything wrong there is no reason for you to be singled out.

And for a very long time, those of us at the bottom of the kyriarchy have been told pretty much the same things about everyday life here in the US. Shut up, you feminists ruin all our fun. If you (POC) don’t want to be harassed by the police then don’t act suspicious. If bad shit happens it’s because you deserved it.

So it isn’t much of a surprise that mass public outrage only occurs when it’s a white dude and his junk at the airport. Same is true for our country, outrage only occurs (or is noticed) when tea partiers pout. Oh you poor het, cis, white, TAB, middle class (or better) dudes.

And our government (or the lackeys that shill for it on the teevee) responds with the usual shit, “let’s make things worse by going the corporatist route! Privatize!” Which might actually make things better for the het, cis, white, TAB, middle class (or better) dudes, but the rest of us will probably have it worse. We all know how well private security firms treat women and brown people (coughKBRcough). But the het white dudes will get passed through by other het white dudes without much of a problem. And then the whole country can go back to feeling secure that only people who deserve it will have a stranger reach in their underwear.

But the underlying problem still exists. Less security (if you include the freedom from groping and peeping toms as security) and less freedom (now that getting on a plane makes for enough reasonable suspicion of criminal activity that the government can search your person).

And none of this security theater has ever caught a terrorist. It’s missed at least 2 that we know of. What keeps us safe is good old fashioned intelligence and police work. Catch them before they ever get to the airport. The only reason to have security theater is to test just how much the American people are willing to put up with before they notice the boot on their neck. Keep scared, keep patriotic, keep the war on terror dollars flowing. No money for schools or medicine or roads, we’ve got scary brown people to kill and security theater to pay for.

So Elizabeth Warren, champion of the middle class and consumer advocacy in finance goes to work for the Obama administration and we get:

Look, I have the right to choose between 75 flavors of corn syrup laden breakfast cereal, with full knowledge that they are corn syrup laden breakfast cereals. What I don’t get is an affordable choice of non-toxic breakfast foods. Information is only the beginning of reform, not the answer to calls for it.

But Warren’s softening is not a surprise. You cannot work from within to fix a structure this decrepit. If try to go inside, you will be corrupted. Plain and simple. You cannot be a part of the broken system and attempt to change a broken system. You cannot consistently choose the lesser of two evils without becoming a little bit evil.

There is no one in government who represents the bottom 80% because once you get into to government, you are part of/ or working for the top 20%. That’s all there is to it. It’s not a massive secret conspiracy. There is no dark cabal meeting in secret to figure out how to take away our resources and rights. It is just good old fashioned class warfare. And our class is losing, despite the overwhelming numbers on our side, because we keep trying to play the game war by their rules. And the rules are fixed. House always wins.

(If this fucking post doesn’t have more analogies than the fucking breakfast cereal isle at your local grocery store, then your store sucks at the false choices of consumerism.)

First lemme explain something. I am a freak of nature. I love flying. I have little games I play with myself on airplanes, trying to guess the exact moment the wheels leave the ground and then touchdown somewhere else. I love the smush you back in your seat feeling of takeoff where your stomach goes a little wobbly. And I love love love the idea that you get in this metal tube and several hours later end up in a completely different place from where you started.

So it takes a lot to make me mad about flying.

But since 2001, 9 times out 10 I get my checked baggage “randomly” searched. (Happened again on our recent flight here. I wish I had collected all the TSA letters I’ve received over the years. They’d make a poignant collage).

And every time I go through the fucking Denver airport and am wearing a skirt, I (and every other woman wearing a skirt) get singled out to go through the chemical sniffer machine, that damn machine that manages to blow puffs of air in a manner that seems specifically designed to blow your damn skirt up.

And I know from stories that people in wheelchairs get subjected to extra crappy security measures.

And while I couldn’t care less about the full body scans, I understand why someone would and am fully behind those that complain.

And bad-touching little kids with enhanced pat downs. No.Fucking.Way. This mom would have you arrested if you tried to touch my kid. But if you complain, not threaten violence but threaten to use the legal resources generally known to be available to all (well not all) citizens, you’re treated as if you just threatened to blow up the airport.

And I am pretty sure that by writing this, the next time I try to fly will be a nightmare.

But it’s not okay.

I remember when I was a kid and the big scary commies in the USSR were the boogy man of the day. I remember being told that part of the reason why they were so awful was because people in the USSR weren’t allowed to travel freely. You had to get government permission to go from one town to another. And now I can’t help but think that we’re doing the same damn thing to people. Can’t travel freely if you don’t support government intrusion. If you complain it’s off to the TSA gulag for you.

All this from a country that claims to value freedom above everything else. If that ain’t fucking Orwellian I don’t know what is.

I keep hearing the same shit from those enveloped by the “fear”. Same sad old arguments. Same major disconnect from what is staring them straight in the face. And I can’t help but think about how culty they are, both dems and republicans. Both legacy parties give their members specific groups to hate, to think of as a threat. Not unlike that horrid scene in A Handmaid’s Tale where all the handmaids tear a man to shreds for raping a pregnant handmaid and killing the child (when in reality he was part of the resistance). Sure, you’ve got it bad, but here’s a fresh body to eviscerate. Both legacy parties give their followers specific talking points to repeat ad nauseum (I actually just got the OLD standard “communism fell because commies were unmotivated to work because the government took care of them line- for real). You know the modern lines- Obama is a socialist from the right, Progressives are a bunch of whiny titty babies who ruin everything from the left.

So how do we wake them up? How do we shake off all the bullshit beliefs they are buried under without wanting to swallow a bullet ourselves in frustration and tedium (because dayyyuuuum, it’s tedious and good lord they can be vicious little twits.)

What I do know is that when I remove the left/right rhetoric and just tell people what I want from my government, they almost universally agree, regardless of party. I want work to pay a wage people can live on. I want people to be able to get healthcare because they need it and not because they are wealthy enough to deserve it. I want everyone to have enough healthy food to eat. I want kids to have good schools to go to and for college to really be accessible for everyone. I want the unpaid contributions to society to count for something, like mothers and pwd who can’t work at a traditional job but still are a contributing part of society.

What I keep hearing from people is the same line “Yeah of course those things would be awesome, but we’ll never get that”. And that is a problem. Small, boxed in thinking courtesy of your traditional legacy parties. 80 percent of us need the same things, those 4 old freedoms that Roosevelt wanted, but specifically we need freedom from want and freedom from fear. And our current system is putting the screws to us hard on both accounts (thank you pervy TSA workers for adding to the fear levels with your government approved sexual assaults).

What little bit of googling I did about exit counseling for cultists involved being respectful of the cultist’s beliefs, while gently countering them with facts. I admit, I often get tangled on this part. I’m just tired of having the same argument, and those legacy party cultists sure aren’t respectful back.

But….. Once upon a time there was a world where the idea of a democratic government was something that only existed in ancient times. And once upon a time there was a world where women voting was seen as something that “would be awesome, but we’ll never get that”. Same is true for a 40 hour work week, overtime pay and OSHA regulations. Same is true for free public education. You don’t get anything if you don’t know what you want. And for the cultists, all they know to want is that the other side doesn’t win. We’ve got to give them bigger, better things to fight for than fight with each other (and us).

The kind of mood where I start smoking again.

So you all get music. M.I.A. doing Hussel

And I wish I could embed it, but you tube won’t let me. So a link to Janelle Monae doing Tightrope

Richard Armitage who plays a spy on MI5, and was a bad bad man on the new BBC Robin Hood, and was delicious in North and South, and was Dawn fucking French’s fiance on the Vicar of Dibley. Black hair, blue eyes, terribly English. Yep. He’s pretty fucking perfect.

more appropriately, fail to remember, is that of the 3 groups that make up our modern nation-state, only one group is real.

People, Government, Business. The unholy trinity. But one of these things exists when the others do not. One of these things is a thing all by itself, without molding or definition from the others. The others are constructs, ways of structuring the world. We have been told that these structures are for the benefit of the people. They keep people safe and distribute resources in the most efficient way. But that’s a load of fucking hooey, coming from a bunch of fucking smoke-blowers.

You can’t have a government without people, and more importantly, without the consent of the governed. You can’t have trade without people. But people can, have and will again exist without either government or business. It’s a cycle. It always comes back around.

There will come a point when those structures that claim to make life better are seen by the majority for what they are, corrupt leeches sucking the life of us. What we get in it’s place is really a function of the same kind of dynamic that goes into disaster capitalism. What are the best ideas floating around at the time?

So the lovely Rachel Weisz has separated from her husband, Darren Aronofsky.

And a few months ago, Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes split up.

Now Kate is dating a super hot underwear model and Rachel is rumored to be hanging out with Daniel Craig.

Both their ex husbands signed the stupid ‘I <3 child rapist Roman Polanski' petition. So now for the wild speculation- douchebags who are so totally cool with child rape that they will sign their name to it end up being left by their (much more talented and richer) wives. Said wives will then start shagging dudes who are vastly hotter than douchebag ex husbands. This is your marital tip of the day. If you want to keep your wife, don’t be cool with child rape.

Holy shit, what a fucking title, right?

This must be a snake oil pitch. Or something. Well it’s something. It’s probably going to sound a little fucking preachy, hippy, free love crappy. I get it. Those kinds of things make me squirm in my seat, whether it’s someone bowing their head to say a prayer before a meal or telling me that their magic crystals cleansed their chakras.

But this you can do. And you don’t have to believe in any kind of deity.

Try to be a little less judgmental. I know, I know. Where is the fucking fun in that? I know, we HATE all the right people. I know there are a thousand ways they don’t measure up to what we think makes a worthwhile human being. I know, we are on the side of progress so our disgust is well-earned and just. I know.

But it is that well-deserved hate that keeps us separate. That is what makes us think left/right when the truth is Top/bottom. That little bit of condescension, snobbery, judgment, squeeful hate of those we deem unworthy is the prize we get for living in a stratified society.

From lefty types, good democrats all, I have heard it is okay to hate: poor single mothers with too many children by too many men, fat people if they are over a certain weight, the disabled if their disabilities aren’t of the wheelchair/seeing eye dog/ sign language varieties, people who don’t buy organic, mothers who don’t/can’t breastfeed, gay people who talk about being gay too much, progressives in general, and and and.

And I am not immune. I hate suburbanites and country folks. I don’t get rednecks and people who like most country music. And teabaggers, of the fucking teabaggers.

But if I take a minute, step back from the little endorphin rush that happens in your brain when you think about things you hate (and yeah, I am sure there is a little rush) and logically think about why someone is who they are, I come up with some understanding.

For example, that woman with too many kids and too many baby daddies is just following the narrative of true love means patriarchal family and babies. She’s doing exactly what she’s been told to do since she was a child, find a nice guy, settle down, have kids. She hasn’t been told that the fact that it keeps failing for her is because it’s a fairy tale, she thinks she just needs to find the right prince.

And that tea bagger partier is the buffer class for the elites. Of course he’s pissed and scared. He really will lose out if the horrid and unfair inequities of society are fixed. He doesn’t have any value to society if he loses his role as gatekeeper for the elites. (While I can understand where he’s coming from, this doesn’t mean that he doesn’t NEED to lose that position. It just means I can be a little empathetic when justice comes).

Just try it out. Just a little empathy and compassion. If you really hate it, you can go back to hating on people tomorrow.

(This post is brought to by the Veil of Ignorance. Go forth and google)