I’m going to open this post talking about Madonna for a few hundred words as a lead-in to the State of the Union speech so there will be some vulgarity. Because Madonna. Then I’ll get into the connection to politics.
(10 minute read)
Yet another multi-millionaire victim.
I like Madonna’s music. She’s a talented performer. She’s performative.[1] However, I sometimes find her actions and antics somewhat repugnant. Certainly not all of them. Take her world tour video announcement. In a “dare” to Amy Schumer Madonna asked her to show how she (Amy) would lick her husband’s asshole. Then Madonna corrected using asshole to the word butthole. Big improvement. While Schumer did not go through with a demonstration she did comment on the size of her husband’s butthole. The video goes downhill from there with infantile behavior. Not anywhere near as cerebral as Dave Chappelle.
Then Madonna, like others, showed up at the Grammies looking…well…different. She didn’t look like herself. Yeah, let’s go with different. She dresses for shock and awe. Liberace also dressed for a theatrical look. He was a man ahead of his time. When I saw Harry Styles’ outfit I laughed. He made me happy. I’m guessing that dressing like that made him happy too. Mission accomplished.
I say this as someone that has been called a freak because of my appearance. This was during the time when I dressed like a clown (to be fair, it was the seventies and lots of folks dressed like clowns). I was also mistaken for being a woman from the back. From the front it was obvious that I didn’t have tits. I didn’t start growing man boobs until I got older. Much older.
Madonna creates a façade that will guarantee that she’s talked about. It’s the business that she’s in. She’s a natural at it. What has happened is exactly what she intended to happen. Maximizing her exposure without spending a dime. Free publicity. Now she’s in the press playing the multi-millionaire victim card. People are picking on her because she’s a woman and old. Bullshit. People are talking about her because she wanted people talking about her. On the positive side at least she wasn’t trying to show people her uterus.
While I’m stepping in it isn’t a woman rejecting looking old ageism? I go along with a person being as young as they feel. But I’m here to tell you I look every year of my age and then some. Is it okay if people don’t want to look old? Sure. Doesn’t matter to me. But I have to tell you that I do react when someone looks a little freaky and I say this as someone who has known a serial killer. Some of these women as well as men needed to have someone around that would have told them to stop having plastic surgery years ago.
Shock and awe.
State of the Union (SOTU)
So, what does Madonna have to do with the State of the Union speech? Good question. She’s performative. The SOTU can be performative. Those present in their reactions are quite often performative. Neo-Republican Fascists (NRF) hecklers like Marjorie Taylor Greene were being performative for their base of supporters, who eat this kind of behavior up. Democrats stand and applaud to show support for their guy. Neo-Republican Fascists sit on their hands along with Regular Republicans (RR). Performative. It’s a show. It’s also a Constitutional show played out live for the world to see.[2] Along with American viewers the rest of the world got to see the Neo-Republican Fascists hecklers in real time. (I wonder if they think they’re making a good impression?)
President Biden did an excellent job. I started to write that he did a good job, but he did better than that. I was flat-out surprised. He isn’t known for being an orator like Obama, Kennedy or Eisenhower.[3] (BTW Eisenhower’s farewell “Military Industrial Complex” speech is legendary.) All his years in public service paid off. Trump is credited with speaking at a 4th grade level.[4] (When I was in the Army our manuals were written for people reading at the 6th grade level.) Perfect for most of his base. Yes, I’m being snarky but I have watched a lot of MAGA heads online.
I have some favorite lines from Biden’s speech.
“I’ll see you at the groundbreaking.” Then he smiled. The reference here is that NRFs and regular Republicans will vote against something and then show up and take credit when it happens.
“We have to reward work and not just wealth.” For me this addresses that the NRFs and RRs are constantly pushing for trickledown economics.
“No billionaire should be paying less taxes than a schoolteacher or firefighter.” AMEN!
I constantly hear or read where people will say that they don’t support the actions of the MAGA heads, Trump, NRFs and RRs but they support his policies. You know policies like where he and his rich buddies along with corporations pride themselves on not paying their fair share of taxes. In other words they don’t like taxing the rich. They reward them. That’s an example of one of their policies.
They build off of that.
Best foot forward.
Presidents use the SOTU to put their best foot forward as the head of their party. It’s expected. Sometimes they fudge a little. Sometimes they fudge a lot. Then the opposition party comes out and rebuts everything they said. It’s traditional because they’re always looking ahead to the next election.
It’s performative.
We’re living too long
Yes Republicans have talked about cutting Social Security and Medicare. Here’s a list. NRF use code words to talk about cutting Social Security Former MAGA VP Pence wants to “reform” Social Security.[5] They want to raise the age at when people can retire and draw Social Security and be eligible for Medicare.[6] NRF also talk about privatizing Social Security. They want their rich friends in the financial markets to play around with our retirements. Then when the economy crashes again, and it will crash again, people won’t be able to retire at all because their retirement funds will be wiped out.
Too many of us started making it to retirement. And by us I mean working class Americans like me, a retired factory worker. When we were dying in sufficient numbers before reaching retirement age we weren’t a problem for the ruling elite. (Half of Congress are millionaires.[7] NRF Rick Scott tops the list at $260 million.)
Millions of people, make that tens of millions or more, never make it to retirement. Cancer took my older brother in his 50s. He had paid into Social Security his entire working life. When I retired the average number of retirement pension checks paid out by the major corporation that I worked for was 18. People were living on average 18 months before kicking. Yes, pensions are separate from Social Security but the point is that a lot of people aren’t drawing Social Security or using Medicare for very long either. And yes they need to be fixed.
Having the top couple of percent of people and corporations that control and have most of the wealth in this country take care of the deficit isn’t really that wild of a proposal. They are rolling in money. They have piles of money. Corporations are making record profits. Oil companies made the most profits that they have made in history![8] Moderna made $12 billion dollars in profit on the Covid vaccines.[9] Three of their people ended up on the billionaires list. It’s their only commercial product. Public funding gave them something like $10 billion dollars. THEY WON’T SHARE THE PATENTS! Who negotiated that deal?! Did you guess TRUMP! That’s just ONE pharmaceutical company!
And Neo-Republican Fascists have a POLICY of NOT wanting to tax the rich while seeking ways to CUT or make Social Security and Medicare less available to working people and the poor. They act like having the wealthy carry a bigger share of the load is a crime against humanity.
Fuck these people.
Hm, I used a lot of bold type, all caps and exclamation points in that last section. I get so mad writing about these fascist degenerates that I have to get up and walk around periodically. I’ll try and calm down a bit as I proceed.
Gun aficionados
President Biden talked about banning assault weapons in his SOTU speech. The gun aficionados will naturally lose their ever-lovin’ minds over that statement.
The days of most Americans aren’t governed by waking up and wondering whether or not they get to carry their assault weapon around all day before they have breakfast.
I have what is considered an assault weapon. It’s a Ruger Mini-14 Ranch rifle.[10] I inherited it. It will accept a 20-round magazine. While it isn’t an AR style weapon (different operating system) it is an assault weapon. Mine is chambered for a 2.23 round NOT a NATO 5.56 round. I just mention this in passing for the gun aficionados.
I am not worried about an assault weapons ban. Nobody is coming for my Mini-14. Just as in previous “bans” people that own these types of weapons would be grandfathered in. There really isn’t any practical way to round them all up if people wanted to. And I am sure that there are people that want to do such a thing.
For arguments sake let’s say that some draconian gun laws were passed and the government unleashed minions to go around confiscating guns. It would take decades for them to collect hundreds of millions of guns in the hands of people.[11] Twenty million of those guns are AR type assault weapons.[12] Lots of gun info is available from Pew Research here. It just isn’t going to happen. The crazy part is that Neo-Republican Fascists are trying to create a government that will have the capability of doing that.
Frankly, I’m just not that paranoid about our current form of government. Years ago a farmer friend of mine shared the news that he had just bought his AK47 and a few thousand round of ammunition so that he could hold off the government when they came for him. I pointed out that he lived in the country and why would they waste any bullets or an airstrike on him when all they had to do was cover him over with a D9 Caterpillar bulldozer. MAGA heads are that paranoid. AND
They are crazy nuts about guns.
On a positive note!
In wrapping this up I really should finish up on a positive note because President Biden presented a positive view of America and what we can accomplish that stands in stark contrast to the dystopian Neo-Republican Fascist view of America. Biden graciously thanked Republicans for their help and offered to work with them. They clutched their pearls at some of his comments and heckled him.
President Biden laid his priorities and policies and never once called out Trump as a “pussy-assed bitch.” (I did warn you about vulgarity but to be honest, it wouldn’t have been a lie.) These words now being a part of the congressional record because NRF in their investigation to prove they’re being censored elicited testimony that their thin-skinned leader Trump tried to censor people. Biden handled NRFs with grace and humor.
It’s being reported that 72% of the people that watched President Biden’s State of the Union speech had a positive reaction to it.[13]
Seems right.
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/performative
[2] https://history.house.gov/Institution/SOTU/State-of-the-Union/
[3] https://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/most-eloquent-presidents.html/
[4] https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/01/09/donald-trump-speaks-at-a-fourth-grade-level-the-lowest-of-last-15-us-presidents-according-to-analysis/23328849/
[5] https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3843718-pence-weve-got-to-have-a-conversation-about-reforming-social-security/
[6] https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3850036-republicans-social-security-medicare-debt-ceiling/
[7] https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/majority-of-law makers-millionaires/
[8] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/exxon-chevron-shell-conocophillips-record-profits-earnings-oil-companies-most-profitable-year/
[9] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/03/covid-pfizer-moderna-project-51-billion-in-combined-vaccine-sales-this-year.html
[10] https://www.ruger.com/products/mini14/overview.html
[11]Reliably mixed results source but their figures are good enough in this article: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/atf-423-million-guns-in-america-1-2-per-person-8-1-billion-rounds-of-ammo-a-year
[12] https://www.businessinsider.com/us-20-million-ar-15-style-rifles-in-circulation-2022-5?op=1
[13] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3849076-72-percent-of-viewers-had-positive-reaction-to-biden-speech-cnn-flash-poll/
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