The Times, They Are A-Changin’

Well, Americans elected a black man for President yesterday, and judging by the jibbering and chittering coming out of the mouths of your average Texan today, you’d think the devil himself will be sacrificing goats and raping virgins at this year’s inaugural ball.

Seriously, the amount of blatant racism on display is staggering, and the fact that most of it is couched in a pseudo understanding of the political process and gross oversimplifications of the geopolitical stage doesn’t really hide what the comments are really about. To white folks, at least in the predictable South, there are few things more terrifying than a black man with power. The only thing that truly concerns me has to do with white flight and escalation. I know a good many canuks, and I promise you – Canada doesn’t want them. That leaves Mexico which, personally, I’m rooting for.

The irony that drips from the concept of white, middle class Bible thumpers who, at least back in the last election (when it was one of the top wedge issues), used to want to close the borders (well, the Southern border, anyway…after all, most Canukistanians aren’t brown) now wanting to keep them open so that they can flee from the United States just amuses me to no end. The idea of Soccer Mom #437,362 cooking chimichangas in the back kitchen of a roadside restaurant in Tijuana is even better, though.

Bringing in models to replace your cheerleaders?
That’s putting outsourcing to work for everyone!

I’ll get back to the racism in a minute, but first I want to talk about how stupid your average Obama hater is, or at least how poorly they understand politics and the economy, and how their whole worldview on such matters has been entirely built by propaganda and their willingness to embrace self-delusion.

Basically, your average American is not wealthy. Palin’s famous Joe The Plumber doesn’t make $250,000 a year, and the sad thing is, he probably won’t ever even come close to ever making that. However, the neoconservative movement has managed to instill the notion in people that, not only are they actually in the upper class with a household income of around $60,000 – but that, one day, they’ll be making hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. People have been sold a delusion, and they’ve bought it completely. This is Problem A.

Smart parents realize the key to happiness is a smart investment in branded offspring. They pay for their own college and, even if they end up as worthless human beings, they can still make .79 cents per forehead view!

Problem B is that your average American hasn’t the first clue how the economy works, beyond what they “learned” in one semester of Economics back in High School. Don’t believe me? Call up your buddy and ask him where money comes from. Who has the authority to issue it? Who prints it? How do banks work, and what is fractional reserve banking? Hell, ask him to explain the subprime mortgage problem to you, and see if he has any understanding of it beyond Rush Limbaugh soundbites.

Problem C is pretty simple, but it’s a concept that’s nonetheless lost on many people. The neoconservative movement is not conservative. In fact, there’s a strange irony in how twisted the neocons have corrupted the notion of the conservative Republican party. Basically, neocons are much more fiscally liberal and supportive of big government than yesterday’s conservative Republican ever was. It’s just that calling their spending corporate welfare tends to impress people who want to believe that they’re rich, and masking that spending as “an economic stimulus” isn’t nearly as offensive as giving poor people money for nothing, just because they need to eat!

I keep saying “Average American” which is a terrible generalization, especially considering that your average American is such a victim of the pharmaceutical industry, they don’t have time to worry about politics!

Finally, we arrive at Problem D. It’s a touchy subject that I’m hesitant to go into, though. The neoconservative movement discovered an untapped demographic not too long ago that proved to be immeasurably useful to them. Through some pretty deliberate manipulations of a few powerful, key evangelical ministries, the Republican party became God’s party – and everyone who didn’t follow the “Religious Right” was going straight to Hell on the back of the short bus. It sounds crazy, I know – but it worked. There are hundreds of thousands of people who vote against their best interests now, simply because to vote Democrat would be an affront to God. If this sounds like hyperbole, it’s just because you don’t live smack in the middle of America’s evangelical Bible belt.

So anyway, that’s why your average Obama hater hates Obama. Well, there’s that and because he’s black. I’m not saying that every McCain supporter is a racist, or that everyone who likes Obama isn’t. I’m simply saying that, at least from the vantage point of living in a red state in the deep south, a whole lot of Republicans (most of whom seem to be of the Religious Right sort of Republican) are racist as Hell. They just do their best to pretend that they’re not, and that’s sad.

Of course, they never come right out and say it. Your average terrified white person doesn’t have the balls to be so blatant about such things. No, instead they just help spread viral e-mail campaigns that talk about things such as Obama being an unpatriotic, freedom-hating Muslim fundamentalist. These are nasty, provably false accusations and most of them know it. However, they want them to be true, so they simply don’t care. Then, they’ll go on to point out that he has very little experience in politics – or they did, anyway…up until McCain tapped the equally inexperienced Palin as his running mate.

Proof that skill is sometimes better than experience.

My favorite, though? They’ll couch every snide, negative remark with an attempt to say something that shows how much they’re not being racist. The longest running non-racist racist thing to say about a black man is, I think, to mention how “well spoken” he is. After that, there’s usually rumblings of things like, “well educated” or how he “presents himself well” – but it’s all just smokescreen. Even so, one would think that they’d realize that treating an educated black man as some sort of bizarre, exceptional anomaly to his race is itself racist. I fear, though, that logic, reason, and understanding don’t come easily to this sort of person.

I do know that Obama probably gets a little too much credit for winning the election, as the country is in such dire need of a change in direction that almost any platform would look preferable to another four years under neocon leadership. In other words, Obama winning has as much to do with us having had a drooling coke-monkey in the Oval Office for the past eight years as it does with him being the best candidate for the job. I don’t care how you slice it, anything is better than four more years of the same crap that not only hasn’t been making things better, but has been actively making them much, much worse.

The closest your average middle class Republican gets to understanding pie charts.

Personally, I think Obama was a great candidate and I suspect he’ll bring about a lot of interesting changes over the next four years. I doubt I’ll agree with all of them, but I’m a weird mix of Libertarian and Democrat who believes in a Constitutionalist approach to federal power, and who won’t shop at Wal-Mart. I’ve long since given up hope that a candidate who reflects my views will ever be elected, so I have to settle for the guy who comes closest. This year, it was Obama. In 2012, who knows?

I’ll close things today by letting white people in on a little secret: Black folks know what you’re really saying, and it pisses them off. You might want to look to that, or at least head on down Mexico way to start scrubbing toilets before it’s too late. After all, there’s a new black family moving into that big White House down the street, and I hear he wants to change a few things…

Yes We Can!
Yes We Did!
Yes, I’m Hungry!

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

Humor | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

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Have you ever made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you're still living with the hilarious consequences years later?

If so, then grab a snack, get comfortable, and prepare to have all of your own poor life choices seem just a little bit more bearable.

You're welcome.

Short Stories
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The nine stories of rage and sadness collected here range from the most intimate of human experiences to the wildest realms of magic and fantasy. The first story is a violent gut-punch to the soul, and the rest of them just hit harder from there.

Those who tough it out will find a book filled with as much hope as despair, a constant contradiction pulling you from one extreme to another.

Life might knock us down, over and over, and will the beat the ever-loving snot out of us from the time we're old enough to give it attitude until the day we finally let it win and stop getting up.

Always get back up.

Gaming | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

This isn't just a book. It's a portal to other worlds where there be magic and dragons and hilarious pirates. Okay, not really. But this book is about those portals, except they're called video games.

The Life Bytes series of books take a deep dive into one man's personal journey through childhood into kinda/sorta being a responsible, competent adult as told through the magical lens of whatever video games he was playing at the time.

Part One starts way back in 1975 and meanders down various digital pathways until, oh, around about 1993 or so.

If you're feeling nostalgic for the early days of gaming or if you just want to understand why the gamer in your life loves this hobby so much, take a seat in your favorite comfy chair and crack this bad boy open.

I'll try to not be boring.

Horror
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What you are about to read is not a story. There is no beginning, middle, or end.

What follows is nothing more than a series of journal entries involving shadow people, sleep paralysis, and crippling fear. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t follow story logic, and nothing works out well in the end.

You've been warned.