If you do a search for any particular news event worth remembering in the past 60 years or so, chances are you can find it on YouTube. Specifically, live news coverage. As a fan of that kind of thing, I have found myself down quite a rabbit hole. A personal favorite is the 1968 Democratic Convention on CBS. Yes, all the bad news you can think of is there as well. I don’t want to bring any specific bad news, but you do you, boo boo.
I mention this as a public service. You may want to search for some coverage in the coming days.
• As we begin another week, I want to note what happened last week. While the craziness was going on, my wife was in the hospital, and it wasn’t a good thing for the first couple of days. Thankfully she turned a corner, and we returned home on Sat. So, she is fine, and WE are fine.
But, on the other hand, I am not OK, and I’m not anywhere near fine. I haven’t been fine for a long time, and I’m surprised that I even have the self-awareness to recognize it. What I can’t do, haven’t been able to do, is define the problem. I can tell you that not a lot matters to me right now. I’ve just become indifferent to just about everything. My default response lately is a shrug and some Meh. I don’t want to be around people, haven’t wanted to be around people for a while. I’m getting sick of social media, I’ve almost deleted all my accounts 3 or 4 times in as many months. I basically feel like disappearing, I feel like no one would care much if I did, and I might just be ok with that. To be clear, I’m not having thoughts of self-harm. Not talking about unaliving. I’m talking about checking out from the world and being alone.
I’m exhausted. I’ve had so much on my plate for so long it’s finally gotten to me. One of my ex-girlfriends from the Mesozoic Era that still keeps in contact with me every now and then tells me that I’m on the verge of a breakthrough. Doesn’t seem that way. A breakDOWN on the other hand, I’ll buy that. Of course, I probably can’t be having a breakdown if I’m thinking I’m having a breakdown. I don’t think that’s how it works. I’ve said on occasion that I think I need to see a therapist, the trick is finding the time to see a therapist. That’s funny. I know this, every tool I’ve learned to use since my moment of clarity in Sept 2005 isn’t working. I think I need help.
• I heard someone ask another person if knowledge and belief had a divorce inside them, and that has got to be the politest of burns. I must remember that one.
• Congress is back in session today to begin their ‘lame-duck’ session. I encourage you to watch the proceedings on C-SPAN and stop letting other people tell you about it. See it for yourself. As we get closer to the end of the Continuing Resolution to fund the Government on December 16th, start taking note of the things the parties say. They’re going to complain about being held up in DC when they could be home for the Holidays, just like they’ve said for every fucking year they kick the can down the road and put themselves in this position. This is the beginning of an education on how the playbook only changes colors every few years, but everything else is the same. Watch what happens in the House if the GOP take the House. The Dems will start using all the complaints and parliamentary tricks the GOP used. They also won’t actually solve anything definitively. Ever. This should make you mad.
• On a related note, the pleas for bipartisanship will last about a week until the President says or does something they can interpret as not really meaning it. Just like they do at the beginning of every Congress as long as I can remember. Really. This bullshit rarely changes, and that should outrage you. I promise you, if people actually watched Congress do it’s job, they would demand better Reps and Senators. Also, younger. Grassley is 89 years old. He voted with a feather and a fucking inkwell when he started. I’m begging y’all. Start paying attention to first degree sources, and stop giving the outrage machine, the angertainment, the infotainment…the NOOZ your time.
I’ll leave you with a photo Kimmers took of a minor victory. Oreo is very clearly Kim’s cat, but she’s starting to trust me. I think some guy abused her and abandoned her, and that’s why she lives here now. This was a pleasant surprise.
Right-wing take over of Politico and CNN, plus mainstream outlets like CBS News and others actively courting Trumpers and pulling their punches for sake of GOP “access” reveals everything terrible about mainstream media and its normalization of fascism. It’s going to get worse.
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Last year, a producer told me how low the bar had become for conservative voices on TV. They had to 1) Accept Biden won the election and 2) Not support white supremacy or be overtly white supremacist. It was very difficult to find these voices.
Mainstream media outlets like those listed above aren’t moving rightward, but they are normalizing “bothsides-ism”. That’s the problem; there aren’t both sides to be had here if you’re a sane person. Anyone who insists that there are both sides to this issue either doesn’t get it or is paid not to.
