Observations – Page 3 – The Designer Monologues

November 9, 2016

Heil President Brexit

…And we wake to the sure knowledge that almost half the people of this country cast a clear-eyed, knowing vote for an utterly unqualified, unstable, authoritarian fascist. That he’s A-OK in their view. (Almost half, because his opponent actually won the popular vote, but thanks to an 18th-century anachronism that artificially inflates the power of low-population, rural states, that doesn’t matter.)

There’s nothing I can say here to make this any better. Look at the demographics — this was the revenge of the old, white and largely uneducated, aided and abetted by the genuinely fascist and the “screw everybody, I’ve got mine” crowd.

Almost half this country literally hates me, my family, and anyone like us. That’s a hard thing to face. Living out here in Red State Flyover-land, we face it daily, but it’s harder knowing there are more than you thought. Hard to feel like this is our country.

At this point, the best we can hope for is that Trump is in over his head, and we face 4 years of utter incompetence and an inability to actually get anything done. The main reason GWB was able to govern at all was because the GOP elites packed his administration with Substitute Teachers — old power. I can’t see The Donald accepting that kind of oversight, so I fully expect that his administration will be a clown car of sycophants and toadies. Not exactly a recipe for getting shit done. Especially given the fact that the rifts in the GOP are there for everyone to see. There will be a group of Trump loyalists in Congress, butting up against the other GOP factions, all trying to do what they want to do.

At least I hope so.

In 2004, I posted this. It still applies.

“We must do without hope. At least we may yet be avenged. Let us gird ourselves, and weep no more. We have a long road, and much to do.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Book II, Chapter VI.

September 21, 2016

Good vs Evil

It isn’t politically correct.

It’s just politics. We’re supposed to be able to “agree to disagree.”

That’s what we were taught.

But conservatives keep telling us how much they hate politically correct language, so I’m just going to go there: This isn’t a disagreement. This is the difference between Good and Evil.

To my conservative colleagues and family members: There’s no point in trying to convince you any longer. I’ve reached the same point as Drew Magary in this GQ article. I can’t waste my time any more. You don’t care about the miles-long list of verifiable facts that make him unfit for the office of President (191 items, and growing daily). You just don’t care. Facts don’t matter to you. He’s the Quarterback of Your Team, and that’s all you care about. He’s Donald “Not Hillary” Trump, and will stick it to all those smug liberals.

There’s no reasoning with you. The amount of damage that your party has wrought on the fabric of our Constitutional democracy doesn’t matter to you. You don’t give a moment’s thought to what further damage will be done, whether he wins OR loses. It’s Your Team, and it’s time to Get In The Game and Get On Board For The Big Win.

I’m sorry — I can’t sugar-coat it any more. His proposed positions — all of them — are evil. Torture, war crimes, violations of human and civil rights. Not just unconstitutional — Evil. The cornerstone platform priorities of your party — all of them — are evil. Your God tells you to care for the weak, the poor, the sick, to look to the log in your own eye before judging the splinter in your neighbor’s, to love they neighbor as thyself… but your party tells you “fuck ’em. Every man for themselves.” Not just inhumane — Evil.

When politics were a matter of taxation rates and spending priorities, it was possible to “agree to disagree.” But that hasn’t been true for decades. Conservatives have made politics revolve around who gets treated with basic human decency. Who gets to be considered a citizen of this nation, and who is second-class. Whose religious beliefs should be enshrined in our laws and forced on everyone, regardless of THEIR religion. It’s not possible to “agree to disagree” about any of that.

It’s not possible to “agree to disagree” with evil.

“Oh, so now I’m evil?” — I can hear you say with disdain.

Moustache-twirling, tie-a-kitten-to-the-railroad-tracks, widow-evicting evil? No. I don’t think you’re that.

You’re an example of the Banality of Evil. The “well it doesn’t affect me, so who cares? I’ll go along to get along” kind. The “screw you, I’ve got mine” kind.

As Burke said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

That’s you.

You’re the otherwise-good men, doing nothing.

…and that IS evil.

May 4, 2016May 4, 2016

Fourth-Sensitive

“May the Fourth Be With You.”

Yeah, you’ve all heard it already. A pun that had been kicking around since at least 1979 began to solidify over the past 5 years or so into a Thing in the geek community. A celebration of Star Wars.

And yeah, I know — a celebration of a brand? A piece of pop-culture? Seems shallow (at best), or childish (at worst).

But here’s the thing. Over the past few years — brought about in no small part by middle-aged nostalgia coupled with Disney’s relaunch of the property — I’ve come to realize exactly how much Star Wars shaped me as a person. That’s not a childish or shallow thing — that’s a profound effect on my formative years.

Stories are important. Myths are stories. Religion, when you boil it down, is a story. George Lucas was once quoted in an interview, saying that he created Star Wars for a “generation that was growing up without fairy tales.” My generation (children when the first film was released, entering our teen years when the final film of the original trilogy was done), growing up in the shadow of nuclear annihilation, the stain of Vietnam, the revelations of Watergate — we definitely needed a dose of mythic hope. The generations that followed us, who grew up with Star Wars as well (whether on video, or in the form of the prequel trilogy) were also shaped, although I’d argue none as profoundly as we were.

More than that, though — on a personal level, I remember sitting in the theater in 1977 with my Dad, around my 8th birthday, blown away by what I saw on the screen. Not just my utter immersion into the world and the story, though. I clearly remember, as the film ended, having a sharp-edged certainty in my mind: I want to do THAT.

Not fly an X-wing, destroy the Death Star, or learn to fight with a lightsaber (although, yeah, I wanted that, too), but rather to create worlds, to tell stories, and present something that I invented in my head to crowds of people who would be affected by it… people who I would never meet, and never know. The idea that such a thing was possible was mind-blowing to me, and I’m not entirely sure what it was about sitting in that theater made it more tangible to me than the books I’d surrounded myself with from the time I could read… but there it was. I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

From 1977 until now, that is the direction I have steered. I have created worlds, and told stories, and I’m going to continue to do so (hopefully) for a long time to come.

…and all because of Star Wars.

So I celebrate it.

May The Fourth Be With Us All.