Critic, Cynic, Satirist “We are all connected to the Universe and each other whether we like it or not”

Sunday Funnies

John Allen
Sep 2, 2018 · 5 min read

A Dreary Day Humor Wise — Death Can Do That

Well this will, I hope, will be the final time I talk about the unnameable as the lede story on NBC and ABC was a recapitulation of the homilies which continued to be replayed from yesterday’s funeral dirge of vacuous drivel. I will express my sympathies for his family as we all know what it’s like to lose someone we love. I lost my brother in ’07 and my mother last May. What I can’t do is celebrate what he did and stood for; war.

Criminals

Senator Lindsey Graham was all broke up over the loss of his friend; fine, mourn his loss. Just discontinue his and your warring ways. Death is OK as long as it’s some random soldier in unnecessary action where you want to exert Empire’s hegemony but your 81 year old friend dies and you mourn. I mourn for the millions that were killed on your watch. The chief, ‘crimes against humanity’, Henry Kissinger was singing his praises too. Yep, this shit makes me sick. It makes me be ashamed to be called an American. I like living here and I did better than most poor people around the world, a privilege of being an American, but I can’t stand with the US policies that inflict death and destruction on other peoples, at all. So enough of the war making agendas that just make enemies of vast numbers of peoples the don’t want the US’s brand of “democracy&freedom”. Leave them the fuck alone and maybe, just maybe, they’ll quit wanting to kill us in the only way they know how; suicide bombers and other explosive devices or mass killings such as San Bernardino, CA in 2015.

A somber day indeed; unlike two weeks ago when Giuliani said “truth isn’t truth”. Now that’s funny. Foot in mouth disease as I say. Idiot politicians are far more hilarious when not bloviating on a dead colleague. Death sort of take the wind out of the political sails. I can’ get my “two minutes of hate” on Sundays when someone dies. More especially a notorious senator that never met a military action he didn’t like. I heard McCain say on NBC’s Today Show, a year or two ago, “we are not a violent nation”, howls from me as I turned off the TV lest I throw my cane through the screen. Alternet had a good discussion from Amy Goodman, that I can’t find now, the transcript from the show. It exists I just can’t find it now as the headlines have changed this afternoon. She is the host of Democracy Now, I usually don’t watch videos, I read the transcripts. I listen to music as I work on my PC. I use silence now when reading books as my speed of reading improves without rocking out to distract me.

Judges

We were also treated to some pro and con views on the Senate confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, a lifetime of rampant conservatism waits in the wings and due to the rule change for the senate voting procedure there’s no way the democrats can stop his being or next ultra-conservative judge. Civil rights will suffer a blow for many years after this. The ‘people’ have no input on this, Trump was elected and he has both houses to confirm his conservative judges all from the Heritage Foundation’s list of very conservative judges, IOW, these are pro-corporate, anti-environmental, anti-civil-libertarian judges. What happens to existing law. i.e. Roe v Wade etc, remains highly speculative but don’t be surprised if civil liberties shrink. The democrats can’t even disclose on 140K documents that are secret or some other national security bullshit, There’s also another 100K documents that Trump executive ordered not to be disclosed, most from the criminal Bush II administration. WTF gives? No wonder no one knows what the fuck is really going on amidst all the secrecy. I’m thinking the Edward Snowden whistleblowing will be the last big disclosure; in my lifetime anyway.

Freedom & Democracy

We also got to hear pundits and other govt officials talk about values, unity, patriotism and service to our country. We weren’t told about all the death that ensues when the US spreads “democracy and freedom” to those states that don’t want the US’s particular brand. Death seems to accompany the US’s stamp of approval or they bomb the shit out of a state ‘till they “comply”. “None for me, thanx”, as Mr Natural used to say.(R. Crumb’s iconic hero) Yep, none for me either especially if I’m not living here. Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia is fair game though as the over 12 million dead can safely claim. That’s a conservative number too, the real number of the dead will never be known. One can’t be very free or democratic from a grave. At least that I’ve been able to find anyway.

Update: The video is on Democracy Now, 08–27–2018. I can’t find the Alternet transcript. It’s there though, somewhere. I’m not tripping.

US Attorney Jeff Sessions was mentioned to whether Trump will fire him or not. In my book he’s as anti-freedom as they come. He wants to throw more people in prison. He’s behind the separation of children from parents at the southern border. He’s behind the concentration camps run by ICE, housing thousand before being loaded on buses and shipped back down south, many of which may be killed in those Central American states the the US policy helped to destabilize by, you guessed it, spreading ‘freedom and democracy’. Nary a word on the horrors inflicted on those folks that live in constant fear from the illegal contraband running gangs that took over after ‘freedom and democracy’ took out the working governments just because they were socialists and wanted to take care of their people. Death has a way of stifling humor. Today was one of those days.

Finally

Once again the NFL players were mentioned as to whether they stand or take a knee during the racist National Anthem playing at all the games. Racist? Look at the other verses in Wiki, racial overtones abound. I’m glad the players unions stood behind the players as of now. It may not stand that way as owners cave to demands from the administration to support a warring, racist, anthem. Again not funny. What might be funny though would be to hear several of the other verses sung instead of the musty one we always hear. Colin Kaepernick continues to pay for his insolence. Again, being first doesn’t necessarily equate to democratic principals. We have further to go before we are really free. And pigs just may start flying.

So today we had too many folks feigning seriousness as they spouted wordage about a dead senator. We got views on the pending judge. I do believe someone said that the democrats couldn’t stop his confirmation after Mitch McConnell went “nuclear” and changed to vote to a simple majority rather than the original 2/3 majority. Expect howls of anguish from the GOP when, and if, the Dems ever get back in power. And the way it’s looking there are too many lame candidates to get the youth to stop posting selfies, playing video games or watching YouTube, to get off their asses and vote. I know I’m not because the actual anti-war candidates have zero chance to win. And until they do have a viable candidate I’ll boycott elections. Peace, The Ol’ Hippy

John Allen

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Critic, Cynic, Pessimist “We are all connected to Universe and each other whether we like it or not”

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