Days of Future Past

A partial re-post of something written many summers ago...

...

A Remembrance of Wingnuts Past, in which I remember that there was once a thing called the “past” and that certain people -- certain Conservative people -- said certain things in that “past” that sound, well, kinda like the rankest sort of treason under bright new sun of 2006.

Not when measured not against the standards of a terrible Liberal like me. Heaven’s no!

Rather when measured against the principles they themselves espoused at 100,000 decibels each and every day. The Republican Guard, who chose to set the bar so very high and weld it in place: an ant-swarm of dime-store legislative Gandalfs, standing athwart the Constitution making Apocalyptic pronouncements about every kind of Presidential behavior...

Then I wrote a lot of things about Phyllis Schlafly

Then...

... Instead, the object of the exercise was to limn yet again that the Right are, above and beyond all of their other sins, liars and hypocrites of the First Water.

A Party that collectively had absolutely no compunction committing – thunderingly and in spades – exactly the transgressions from which they now loudly demand the Left cease and desist.

Once again we see in the end that the Right are the twisted, everted People of the Lie: externalizing their own rotting souls onto the outside world and then attacking it like Furies. Hysterically demanding that everyone else live up to the most impossibly rigid and/or Puritanical codes conduct. And always, always turning out to be the most dangerous and degenerate examples of the very failings, perversions and corruptions they imagine they see in others.

A cult of anger, nihilism and delusion who, judging solely by their own publicly held standards and words, are utterly unfit to govern.

-- driftglass, "Blast Fishing in a Fever Swamp". July, 2006

Used to be I wrote posts like this one -- hundreds and hundreds of them -- late, late at night and under my pseudonym because I worked exhausting-crazy-long hours Doing Good within a large organization which would have absolutely sacked me if anyone ever figure out what I was writing at 2:00 AM.

Welcome to Employment at Will!

Eventually they did sack me.  I was still working +100 hours a week Doing Good, had acquired a genuine psycho/sadist for a boss who was making life a misery for everyone within venom range. I was still writing this stuff late, late at night as well as scrambling to find another job Doing Good outside of my boss' venom range.  What I didn't not have was anyone with clout to intercede on my behalf and found out -- once again and too late -- that Doing Good and working long hours has nothing to do with keeping one's job.

Layoffs came and with no one of importance to stand up for me, I was out on my ass and right into the maw of the Great Recession.

Then a series of itinerant, part-time/no-benefits jobs where I was able to Do Good until their funding ran dry, at which point I was back out on the street.

Lost the condo.  Lost my insurance.  Lost my savings.

Still writing posts like this one -- hundreds and hundreds of them -- still under my pseudonym because it turns out "Writing Mean Stuff About Conservatives" is a resume-killer.

Used to be I would forward posts like this to various publications and inquire about writing under their masthead.  Never heard back from any of them.  Turns out, pointing out the GOP was being operated like a Star Wars Walker by people who wanted to stomp and smash and blast their way through the heart of our democracy was not something anyone wanted to put on family radio or on teevee or through a printing press and sell in the corner.

Used to be this was career-suicide blasphemy.

Now its a business model :-)

Funny old world.