Propaganda 102: Notes

This WILL be on the test!
--You don't have to control people's thoughts if you supply what they think about and the words they use.
--We GOTTA to stop acting like "the Media" are independent agents.They are NOT. They're private property!
--Middull Markins aren't sheep, they're moths.
--Agit-prop doesn't lose any effectiveness because it's untrue.
--Every Twitlerian slander, every nugget of mis-information, every spin, every lie becomes part of the discourse, of the narrative.
--It's not about "money." Dat's just a tool. It's about POWER, ruling the world. Compelling others to do your will. And THAT now seems possible.
--Adverse effects of a vaccine, if any, would be non-transmissible; adverse effects of the virus are pandemic. Is there a "choice?"

The "PRIVILEGED LIFE"

White privilege is real. Take a minute to compare a Black person’s experience today.
I have privilege as a white person because I can do all of these things without thinking twice:
I can go birding in the Park (#ChristianCooper)
I can go jogging (#AmaudArbery)
I can relax in the comfort of my own home (#BothemSean and #AtatianaJefferson)
I can ask for help after being in a car crash (#JonathanFerrell and #RenishaMcBride)
I can have a cellphone (#StephonClark)
I can leave a party to get to safety (#JordanEdwards)
I can play loud music (#JordanDavis)
I can sell CDs (#AltonSterling)
I can sleep (#AiyanaJones)
I can walk from the corner store (#MikeBrown)
I can play cops and robbers (#TamirRice)
I can go to church (#Charleston9)
I can walk home with Skittles (#TrayvonMartin)
I can hold a hair brush while leaving my own bachelor party (#SeanBell)
I can party on New Years (#OscarGrant)
I can get a normal traffic ticket (#SandraBland)
I can lawfully carry a weapon (#PhilandoCastile)
I can break down on a public road with car problems (#CoreyJones)
I can shop at Walmart (#JohnCrawford)
I can have a disabled vehicle (#TerrenceCrutcher)
I can read a book in my own car (#KeithScott)
I can be a 10yr old walking with our grandfather (#CliffordGlover)
I can decorate for a party (#ClaudeReese)
I can ask a cop a question (#RandyEvans)
I can cash a check in peace (#YvonneSmallwood)
I can take out my wallet (#AmadouDiallo)
I can run (#WalterScott)
I can breathe (#EricGarner)
I can live (#FreddieGray)
I CAN BE ARRESTED WITHOUT THE FEAR OF BEING MURDERED (#GeorgeFloyd)
The list omits Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old EMT killed by police officers in her own home on March 13. #BlackLivesMatter

A Litany of Ills and Injuries

I have been aging less than gracefully.
Understand, I was NEVER graceful in youth, either.
Somewhere, I skipped over the automatizing motor function part. I was no kinda dancer, replacing skill with enthusiasm
But advancing age has found me increasingly troubled with balance matters. Bi-pedal locomotion is considerably more difficult and complex than it might appear.
So, in anticipation of "care" I may now or in the future require, my sister assembled a list of what she and my other sibs knew to be my physical infirmities. In reviewing them, I shall say in advance, I don't know how I manage (badly?)
1. I am a fall risk, with balance issues (but am getting PT for that)
2. I have two stents in the cardiac artery.
3. I have partial occlusion of both carotid arteries.
4. I have (mild) osteoporois.
5. I have sciatica.
6. I have COPD.
7. I have high blood pressure, controlled by meds.
8. I have GERD.
9. I have not-quite crippling peripheral neuropathy in my feet and toes.
10. I have had significant muscle loss, such that when I've fallen, I've had great difficulty getting up.
11. I live alone.
A-Men!

Hopalong to the Bar-20...

I was a "Hopalong" kinda fella, in my youth: Bill Boyd, dressed all in black, on that glorious, white horse!
My dear, long-departed grand-dad usta sit me on his knee and read to me from the Clarence Mulford books about Hoppy and his side-kicks on the Bar20, while the old fella smoked a cigar and sipped cognac from a snifter. (I'm sure that that contributed to my later lust for reading.)
I went back to look at them, as a adult, and was surprised (and revulsed) at the casual racism and sexism they so cavalierly dispensed. It wasn't unusual for the time--indeed, it was quite common--but it helps to explain how such attitudes could persist and flourish. They were completely unexceptional for the time.
Also, that "Hopalong" was called that because he had a wooden leg:
>>In 1905, author Clarence E. Mulford wrote a novel about a hard-edged, hard-talking cowboy who walked with a wooden leg and his sidekicks at the Bar 20 Ranch. That cowboy was Hopalong Cassidy, one of Western fiction’s greatest heroes. While later versions cleaned him up considerably, this is Hopalong as he first appeared."<<
Mulford wrote ALL the "Bar-20" stories while living in Maine.
Interestingly, although the population of Black "cowboys" in the old West approached 50% after the Civil War, when thousands of former slaves moved West, there isn't a single Black cowboy in ANY of the dozens of books and stories Mulford wrote about his hero, Hopalong...
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Dr. Woody'z Meemez

BLUE, NO MATTER WHO

PRIMARIES:
I am personally ambivalent about whom the Democrats nominate.
At this point, it appears to me that IF Lord Dampnut CAN be ousted, ANY Democrat--any semi-sentient being--ought to be able to do it--if it can be done, at all. His destructive antics, both at home and abroad, have encouraged many to believe his ouster is a foregone conclusion, but I am not sanguine about it. (YMMV)
Conversely, if, as I increasingly suspect, he canNOT be ousted--because the forces arrayed in his behalf (Ruuskis, Israelis, Chinese, NKorean, AND the GOPhux...etc.) will be GREATER and MORE intrusive (and probably LESS visible) than in 2016; meanwhile the GOPhux inna Senate have blocked funding for counter-measures FOR THE PAST THREE FUCKING YEARS--then it ALSO won't matter whom the Dems name.
(Yes, it's a tautology; that's two-party politics)
So, I hope it's either Biden or Bernie.
Why?
Because BOTH of them have just about exhausted their useful shelf-life.
This is the end, the last act, for either of them, howsoever it turns out.
Then, in the (unfortunately unlikely) event that either were elected, they might be prevailed upon to "do the right thing, and resign/retire in favor of their VP.
And if the Saffron Shitwhistle is returned, then no one who MIGHT take a prominent role subsequently is damaged by the defeat...if there happen to be future, national elections.

The Three Commandments