rote response

with a waffling ( we will pause immigration raids on businesses owned by a constituency we do not want to alienate...tariffs? 145%...or 30%...third term? well maybe not...vlad the impaler is a horrible person but a stand up kind of guy...iran? we'll see in a couple of weeks ) septuagenerian of decreasing acuity in charge it is difficult to come up with an explanation for policy based on critical thought so of course we are going to jump into ad hominem discourse with both jackboots...an authoritarian extra-due process assault on a given community of people based on ethnicity that allows the questionng of the status of even those who are citizens won't stand up to an intellectually rigorous ( or constitutional for that matter ) analysis based on the much cited rule of law that has eamnated from the constipated thought proces of the conserative faction in american politics probably since, at least, 1789...so the junior varsity has traveled to the scene of resistance to attack civil servants ( another specialty of the twisted ideology they represent ) and politicans of differing viewpoint...rendered stupid by dogma what else would ( or could ) he say?

closed

as a retirement job ( and as a hedge against the greedy bastards in whoretown whom no one with any rational sense would trust not to take everything they can ) i am working for a "retail giant" that refers to itself as the "omnichannel retailer" in a decaying and slowly dying suburban mall...which just died a little deader on the last day of march when...

the local forever 21 closed its doors for the last time...

it looks rather empty in there as a bastion of "fast fashion" seems to have found the limit to the genre...should i be saddened by the death of a retailer...hardly...there are others...i work at one...and then there is the wealth of on-line shopping to take into consideration...and that is the crux of the issue...i have to consume to survive...and even if i refuse to make purchases from one particular vendor or another...either out of preference or some political or social issue ( dei for instance ) i am still making them somewhere else and so still supporting a corporate entity and as a function of that, capitalism which seems to be a source of many issues...embedded in the system and aggrandizing it though need and, on occasion, desire...framed as much by its needs ( we're here to help you help us ) as much as by any of my own even by working supporting it...work is as much about consumption as it is earning ( what am i "earning" for ? )...work demands food, fuel, transport, clothing, time and effort to sustain...how much of my consumption is geared towards "work"? do i work to sustain myself or do i sustain myself to work? and while we are talking costs let's look at some stemming from "fast fashion"...trendy cheap-assed clothes that are discared readily...where does all that end up?

well...ghana imports a lot of used cothing from the west...and, from what i have been reading, about 40% of it ends up in landfills and along the shoreline as unsaleable...so the environmental costs ( who knows what went on during the production of said clothing? i do not allthough i do hear of workers in california earning well below minimum wage affixing labels to garments...one presumes [however cannot prove ] sweat-shops all alnong the processes ) extend to various parts of the world, developed and un...who could rationally call any of this elements of a sustainable system?

what has this accomplished II

an "unconditional discharge"...and do you suppose this makes a difference in any way...at no time did i expect donny to serve jail time...he is of the elite and they will protect their own...they are, after all, extrotionists to an individual and if one goes down there could be a cascade of criminal comeuppance...there is a long hisory of elites bending morality to suit their purposes...hypocrisy is a common weapon of power...aaron burr was indicted for murder in new jersey for killing hamilton...that was quashed as he was a sitting vice-president...donny is an incoming president and he ostensibly skated because of that...nah...just another self-promoting entitled rich ( allegedly ) guy whose base, for whatever twisted reason, thinks he is an answer to their problems rather than part of the cause...do they have a right to be angry? i'd say yes they do...it is simply anger that is misdirected, or, rather, not fully directed...missing the point somewhat in thinking that any part of the elite could possibly have anything beyond their own interests in mind when grabbing for political power...they will be disillusioned soon enough and then the need for a police force to ensure loyalty to the maga dogma will become a necessity...interesting times ahead.

another post that would have offended the facebook arbiters of the acceptable

today's mail was fairly nondescript in anyone's assessment ( and, particularly, mine )...it did, however, contain one piece of junk mail that held some interest on a number of levels...

first of all it is a brazen invitation to usurp the letter of the law of this godforsaken state ruled from downstate by a legislature with a supermajority of trumpist, bible thumping, covertly racisit, and homophobic atavistic relics from the ninteenth century ( at the very latest ) who would never undermine the whiskey lobby in the state capital by legalizing marijuana sale...and, even more to the point, indivdual recreational use...sloppy drunk was good enough for garandpa and by god it's good enough for them as well...right and true recreation for all decent citizens...marijuana is simply a tool of subversive elements used to corrupt youth and, much like socrates, needs to be suppressed...secondly, any attempt on my part to post any of this on my facebook page would result in a stern warning from what are doubtlessly robotic sensors about its unacceptability on the grounds that i would be promoting something illegal ( in this behavioral sump of a state anyway...clearly a different philosophical and legal out look across the state line )...so i came to this bastion of free speaach just to say "fuck these people"...which group ( or groups ) of "people" i have in mind is up to you to divine.

taxes, whore politicians, and contingency

my not going to the court house in the county seat ( "what will happen if this does not happen"...begins to sound like a descartes square ) today would have been contingent on several events occurring which did not...first i would not have gone if i could have paid my property tax on line...unfortunately when i filled out the "payment" page with all the rquisite details such as routing number, account number, address, email, phone number and clicked on continue to go to the confirmation page nothing happened...same with a debit/credit card...technological failure...second...i could have mailed it ( i have eighteen days left to pay in ) if i trusted the post office...however since just yesterday i received mail addressed to someone in a different city i had no faith in their abilities...third...there was a list of banks that would accept my payment on the bill...i did not want to hassle with finding directions to branches of unfamiliar banks and trust issues cropped up here yet again...so i got in my vehicle and drove to the county seat...the treasurer's office is in "building A" in the complex which is fine except there were large signs on the windows stating "entrance sr-1 is closed ( this being the door to "building A" ) the public should use entrance sr-2 " ( why the "sr" designation eludes me ) which was a nuisance but what to do...unfortunately "entrance sr-2" is the entrance to the building with the courtrooms so i had to empty my pockets in a plastic tray and walk through a metal detector which my metal belt buckle and the rivets in my jeans set off so i had to be frisked and scanned again with a hand-held scanner ( " boy you sure got a lot of metal buttons in here"...no they're rivets but that is beside the point )...after that adventure i had to walk down the hallway connecting the buildings...which was festooned with signs saying "detour for entance sr-1" and walk up the stairs ( the deputy at the door said i should "take the elevator" so i defied authority ) to the treasurer's office which was surprisingly empty so that transaction was quick if not painless...coincidentally enough early voting was set up just outside the treasurer's...

so i voted against that orange haired bozo...which won't actually matter in this yahoo state however i voted my opinion of that clown officially...whore politicans ( from the county level grifters on up ) are all whores...some are simply less vile than others

antness

so i am one of doubtlessly a significant number of people to receive this...

email informing me that there are changes coming to the way i log into my social security account and i had best get on with conforming my account with said changes or i won't have access and then there will be extensive paperwork just to prove i am me so we can fix this...they seem unable to leave things be...why did a user name and password on one page need to be shifted to another? one possibility is that one subset of bloated bureaucrats had to find a way to justify their existence and making changes to "streamline the process" into a more "efficient interface" was just the ticket...or...they could simply be intensifying what the dutch writer geert mak calls "antness"...the feeling of being small in the face of institutional archetecture...both physical and in the processes involved in maintaining your identity "inside"...change keeps people off balance and provides them with something to occupy their attention and thoughts...an effort to prevent them from thinking about why we should need to pander to a bureaucracy and their top down imperatives to change the way things are done for instance...either way, my thoughts are this is not likely to improve until the entire edifice collapses from its own weight

political discourse 101 summer session 2024

i saw any number of these flying from pick-up trucks on the fourth of july...not surprising since the next county over in this trupy state is a crypto-fascist enclave of white rural rage...amazon sells them at a reasonable price so even the land poor can pick one up to vent their spleen at everyone in eyeshot...and, given the condition of some pick-ups, earshot...

given that capitalism is consequentialist, amazon sells these as well...it's what old jeff has not how he got it that matters...a system lockean to the bone that focuses on property not ethics...i cannot truthfully say i have seen one of these in the flesh even though there are pockets of anti trump voters dotted around the environs...i also notice that they are three dollars more in price...somewhat unfair pricing as one correspondent to this blog has pointed out...another has pointed out that the pricing may reflect that the socio-economic status of those who might consider flying a "fuck trump" flag would likely be of a higher standing and so could be afforded...both sensible positions...they do, however, leave out the sacred economic principle of supply and demand...the greater the demand the higher the cost because the "good" is in scarcer supply...there may be more "fuck trump" minded people about than white rural rage is taking into consideration...or, conversely, old jeff is trying to discourage purchase by jacking up the price and giving us a glimpse of his political position in 2024...either way, political discourse has sunk to a rather low level in my experience...politics is always emotional and fear based to whip up the mob ( politicians love a rally because of group-think [ think "two minutes hate" ] and the attendant lack of thought that they entail...in the documentary "confessions of a hitler youth" the subject discusses being at a party rally where hitler spoke...at one point the crowed rose to its feet screaming "heil hitler" in which the protagonist joined and then said, after the noise had died down, that he truned to his neighbor and asked "what did he say?" politicans on both sides of the aisle are pure slime...past, present, and future ) so it's no surprise people aren't really thinking...takes too much work...and the incessant drone of political falsehoods alienate anyone who might...fuck these people.