Have "Right-wing influencers just found their new favorite country song"?
Well...it's a lot better, musically, than the last one our duty to resist censorship obliged us to listen to. I'm not setting you up to prepare to hear anything the Carters, Bill Monroe, Jim Reeves, Ernest Tubb, Dwain Reed, or whoever your favorite Real Country Singer was, would have sung. This is redneck style as distinct from hillbilly style, almost in a dictionary-definition sort of way. But redneck style is what it is and, as redneck country music goes, I suppose it's pretty good. There is a recognizable tune and most of the words could have been printed in the newspapers when we were growing up.
I mean, sheesh. How is it possible not to know that if it's "overtime hours," it's "part-time pay"? What kind of tin are young people's ears made from these days? The right word just stands up and dances for them and they've got to fumble out some dead-wrong word just because it is rude...it's a shame.
But it's authentic. The vulgarities are the way the Adult Ed students in the DC schools talk, all right, and saying "Richmond" in a way that sounds just like "rich men" is as authentic working-class Virginia as it gets. The sentiments, well, my generation usually find more polite language (and speak from clearer throats), but...yeah. Right on. He's nailed it.
And so what's he gonna do about it?
Yes, Oliver Anthony, I'm talking to you. Gentle Readers? You, too. Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do?
(Finding a song of whose lyrics all I remember is one line, somewhere in the middle, is probably hopeless. Take my word. In the 1970s there was a song that asked "Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do?" in a memorably clear and poignant tone. A person who remembered the first line, the refrain, or the name of the band or singer, could probably find it on Youtube.)
We can just shout. What that usually accomplishes is making our throats sore; occasionally it may also get us thrown out of public places or maybe arrested. So what are some more productive ways to use the anger?
Here's a shout to an eager, aggressive little dot-com...I don't think their logo is going to be a bestseller, unfortunately, and all they're selling currently appears to be their logo, and their way of pushing it has so far got them blocked from lots of e-mail boxes and banned from some of the social media they wanted to use. They're not really spammers, though; they seem to be just eager-beaver kids, of both sexes and all colors, trying to push a good idea every way they can think of, and they need to think harder. But they have a splendid idea of marketing their stuff through true stories of people doing useful things with the emotional energy of anger.
Talking to you, man who goes through each day's work and each evening with his family oozing contempt and menace. One of these days, loved ones, POW, right in da kisser.
Talking to you, woman who smiles too much, probably calls strangers by fake endearments in a high nasal voice, spends a lot of time putting together a look that fits in and not making others unhappy when cheated in stores and mistreated on the job, and hits your children.
I have seen so many women like that that when I see a woman with blonde hair and made-up eyelashes show her teeth to the world, I think "child abuser."
Come on! I'm talking to you! When are you going to lay off the kids, students, subordinates, even the poor old dog that still licks your hand after you've kicked him, and do something about the rich men (a long way) north of Richmond? Something they can feel? Something worthy of full-grown men and women?
Here's a list of things to try:
* Burn the plastic and use cash. Stop paying third parties to handle every transaction you make. Start consciously making most of your purchases from smaller businesses that don't run on plastic and electronics. When you count out the amount you're willing to spend and feel those bills and coins in your pocket, it's easier to hold on to them longer--spending them feels more real--and also it's easier to encourage that 5'3", 300-pound mess to do something useful that might burn off some of the fat.
* Stop worrying about the fact that what Lardblob chooses to buy with that government handout cards is fudge rounds. For one thing it's possible that Lardblob gets healthier food, with barter, from a neighbor's garden; it's even possible that person has a garden of per own (though gardeners, even if hypothyroid, tend to be able to keep the flab down to just 200 pounds). For another thing, although Lardblob might feel better after breaking an allergy-addiction cycle to glyphosate-tainted wheat, it's possible that, as of today, the least miserable moment in Lardblob's day is after eating per morning fudge rounds, and who are you to think about taking that away, what do you imagine you have to offer in its place?
But, best of all--you can nudge Lardblob off those handouts. Add some carrots to the stick of your nagging and blaming. Don't just say "It's a shame, it shouldn't be allowed." All that does for Lardblob is communicate hostility, of which Lardblob probably has an abundance to pay you back; feeling "judged" motivates welfare cheats to try to think of bigger scams. Put Lardblob to work. On a decent job. With benefits. Some people do benefit from the social workers' "retraining for an entry-level job" game, but others need a responsible, challenging, interesting job. Like "entrepreneur." Find out what Lardblob is willing to do or sell. As far as you're concerned, Wal-Mart and Target and Costco no longer sell that. You buy it from Lardblob.
* Commit to spend a fixed amount of your budget at locally owned businesses, the smaller the better. "But I spend all of my money on house payments, gas and car maintenance, food and medication--I don't buy (videos, gift items, floral arrangements, hand-knitted sweaters, books, custom-print T-shorts, or even newspapers)." No? Then find a way to get food and car maintenance items through the local person who sells the videos, gift items, etc., even if you have to pay for the "convenience" of person buying them on sale at a big-chain store.
* If there's an alternative way to survive without taking "medications," bite the bullet and do it. You may have to commit to a diet and exercise regimen. You may have to work through some uncomfortable emotional feelings that may require you to make even further lifestyle changes so that you can fix the facts and let the feelings follow, without mood-altering drugs. You may even have to switch from a friendly Dr. Feelgood who hands out all the pills you can swallow to a sterner doctor who says things like "You must work your program if you want me to help you get off these drugs." But if you really hate Merck or Pfizer as much as you say you do? Do it. Pfizer will happily let Fauci take all the pain that's due to them. Why let them? When you say no to the legal drugs, that's when Pfizer, or Merck or Lilly or whoever else, is going to howl!
* Start raising more of your own food. Even if you live in an apartment; even if your stacks of strawberries, boxes of herbs, and buckets of tomatoes make the said apartment look weird and cluttered--let that remind you that you're looking for a house with a garden. Eating your own unsprayed food will give you more healthy energy and, if you're like me, take care of the surges of emotion. If they pay attention, a lot of people have a mood swing--however brief--as an immediate reaction to glyphosate, independent of whether or not it leads into a more serious physical reaction. Whether it feels like anxiety, depression, or hostility probably depends on how helpless you perceive yourself as being; the more of life's obstacles you've overcome, the more likely it is to be hostility, and the more sheltered your life has been, the more likely it is to be anxiety. That's a guess that's holding up for people I know. (Most of us are old and tough, so what we feel is dam'mad. The people this web site has lost, however, seemed more passive and helpless again, toward the end.)
* Even if you think of yourself as a yellow-dog Democrat, you must admit that the Party of Censorship has become not only yellow dogs, but rabid yellow dogs that need to be put down--in a political sense, of course. Don't bash them, don't trash them--just vote them into a future of obscure and successless unemployment in a country where handouts are harder for able-bodied people to get. Let party leaders know that, however hoarse and bleary-eyed Robert Kennedy personally may be, whatever sixty-is-old-for-some-people-but-not-for-Kennedys-but-Kennedys-die-young-anyway emotions you may feel, he is the only viable voice the Ds have left. Ds who want to be elected will follow his lead. And I think we need two major parties, myself, but as far as I'm concerned, if the Ds don't follow Kennedy, we don't have two major parties.
* If you're young, think seriously about why my generation will generaly agree that getting over the idea that Socialism might be made to work is a necessary part of growing up--that as long as you think Socialism is a viable idea, you're squeaking from a position less than four feet above the floor. If you're not young, help form a united front on this.
* Bill Maher has been wrong about a lot of things, but one thing he got right: When You Drive Alone, You're Driving with Bin Laden. Buying gas is what funds the craziness in the Middle East. The less gas we buy, the sooner the testosterone-poisoned go back to throwing rocks at each other and the saner people of the Middle East have some chance to evolve into a majority. A horse or a bicycle is a lovely way to move through space independently of other people and get some of that solitude you crave, which is a valid need you should be meeting daily. A car is not a viable way to meet the need. It fails to meet the need for physical exercise and it brings you into more, closer, angrier contact with other people. Consider walking--you may have to snub a lot of pushy, yappy people on some routes, but you can probably find a route where you either don't meet other people, or meet people who know that you don't speak to people on the trail without a solid reason, e.g. a bridge closed up ahead.
(It's official! An important way to encourage Americans to drive less is to tell people, especially if you're a male meeting a female pedestrian: DON'T smile. DON'T say hello. DON'T LOOK, unless there is an emergency to report. If you do make eye contact, hold it long enough to say "Please excuse me, this is an emergency," and then look at your shoes.)
* Keep singing...in real life. If censorship does continue to do for the entire Internet, starting with Amazon (I refuse to link to Forbes, because #ReadersRevolt),what it's done for Twitter...then keep writing, self-publishing, mailing, in real life., Let those calling for "as system of gatekeepers, like the publishing industry in real life, to filter public access to information" on the Internet be reminded about our ancient and honorable tradition of newslettering. And watching corporate greedheads jump out of windows. And applauding. We don't have to have "instant" communication to communicate. The Internet's been fun, for as long as the corporations are willing to share it with anybody and everybody, absolute freedom of speech for all, and encourage criminals if they choose to post things that tell law enforcement how to help their better selves stop them committing crimes.
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