A Recipe For Russiagate Cake

Are you like me, do you miss the taste of McCarthyite pie like grandma used to make? Well I’ve come across a recipe that will take you right back to the old days. It even has a modern twist that appeals to the liberal set. It’s called Russiagate Cake and it’s all the rage right now in Hollywood. Just listen to some of what they’re saying:

“It’s all I can think about.” Rob Reiner

Whenever I want to get the bitter taste of defeat out of my mouth, I simply consume a heaping serving of Russiagate. Yum!” -Bill Maher

“It’ll drive anyone who tastes it absolutely crazy.” -Kathy Griffin

Sounds delish, right? And what’s even better, it’s simple to make. So let’s get to it, shall we?

We’ll get to the frosting later, but right now let’s list the main ingredients:

1.       An out of touch liberal class unable to understand blue-collar frustration.

2.       A Military Industrial Complex that wants increased hostilities with foreign nations.

3.       A Corporate media infiltrated with intelligence agents.

4.       Secret ingredient (only available from anonymous agents within intelligence agencies.)

Before you start adding the ingredients together, make sure you sift them very carefully in order to remove any possible dissenting voices. This cake is not going to rise unless they have been removed. I cannot stress this step too much.

Now when you mix these four ingredients together, you’re going to notice the end result isn’t going to hold together real well. So you’re going to want to baste it in the crazed stares of Adam Schiff and Rachel Maddow for as long as you can stand it before creeping out. Then, in order to help it congeal into anything that looks like it won’t fall to pieces, immediately store it overnight in the deep freeze of Hillary Clinton’s stony soul.

In the meantime, get the oven ready. You’re going to want to turn the heat up as high as it will go if you have any hope of making this cake a reality. And then once you’ve got it pre-heated, simply pop it in and let it bake for two-and-a-half years.

After the two-and-a-half-years (don’t take it out early), it may appear to still be only half-baked. This is to be expected. It’s not the cake itself that is of importance. In fact, the beauty of this recipe is that even if you add in wrong ingredients, you will never have to own up to it. Once you cover it up with enough sugary frosting, everybody will be in such a state of diabetic coma they won’t be capable of reflecting on what they’ve just ingested.

And now to the main part of this cake: the frosting. Whip it into a lather. I can’t stress this part enough because this dish is all frosting and no cake. Whip it as you would a dead horse. Whip it until it is the same consistency of the froth on a rabid dog’s muzzle. Whip it until you have enough of it to cover the entirety of the cake so nobody can see what’s underneath.

And there you have it, a dessert that’s sure to satisfy even those who have been suffering from an upset stomach since the 2016 presidential election. One cake, served liberally, should be enough to satiate 65,844,954. Moreover, it keeps well, so that you can continue to serve it to your guests for as long as they continue coming back for more.

One last note: should the guests you were anticipating not show up and you find yourself hosting a group of FOX News Republicans, you merely have to add extra nuts and bananas and presto: you have a wonderful Benghazi Fruitcake they’ll be sure to enjoy.

A Trip To Colombia And The Barriers Of Language And Walls

I spent last week visiting Colombia. It was the first time in my life I visited another country without having much of an idea how to speak the language. Nevertheless, I made my best attempts to communicate to the people I met without demanding they use my language.

This could have gone poorly. If the people I had encountered hadn’t been kind and patient, I’m sure I would have withdrawn and not attempted to communicate with the people of this country any more than was necessary. But they were all very friendly. Not once did I get a look that made me feel someone thought unkindly of me because I couldn’t speak their language. Not once did I have a situation where someone wasn’t willing to sit through my pointing and mangling their native tongue in order to be of assistance to me.

I could see how it would be easy to assimilate into such a culture. Which makes me realize it is not merely the outsider but the insiders who are responsible for making assimilation possible. This is an idea that is never expressed by those who say that people coming into our country need to assimilate. They never look at themselves as part of the equation, never see in themselves anything that needs to change.

It is unrealistic to believe that anyone entering another country should abandon everything that has made them who they are. To do so would demand immigrants and outsiders pretend to be something they are not. The healthy way to assimilate is for the outsider to understand as best he can the culture he is joining and seeing how he can become a part of it while maintaining his core values and integrity. In this way the country that welcomes others grows in the process. Colombia is a mix of many different cultures that have blended together to make the nation what it is today. It is still growing, still has room for newcomers and visitors to make it a better country.

The United States is no different. If we had rejected all outside influences, we wouldn’t be able to find pizza or eggrolls today. We would be a nation of Puritans. Or if you want to get technical, the Puritans never would have been allowed in without shedding their silly clothes and odd religious customs.

Now you may think that I was treated well by the Colombian people merely because they wanted the U.S. currency I was carrying, and that may be somewhat true. But the fact of the matter is they shared with me their labor, the fruit from their trees and the fish from their waters, and all I gave them is a few rectangular pieces of paper with green ink on it. I can’t help thinking I got the better end of the bargain.

Oh, I know, it’s more complicated than that. Those U.S. dollars are an abstraction of the wealth created by our nation. It seems every time someone wants to explain away what is on the surface quite obvious, they point to abstract ideas even they do not understand in order to explain why seeming injustices make sense. It’s the same complicated reasoning they use to explain how foreigners are coming to our country and taking advantage of us by giving to us their labor in exchange for living at the bottom of the social scale.

There are a lot of people in the United States who fear being taken advantage of by their neighbors to the south. What they don’t seem to realize is that their neighbors have more to fear from us than we of them. Since the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States—at first tacitly, then overtly—claimed the right to insure they had significant input into the doings of the nations to their south. Since then, the influence the United States has asserted has been too immense to speak of here. This has resulted in a lot of suffering for people in Central and South America, so much so that it has resulted in a desire to migrate to the United States.

My tour guide in Medellin, Santi, did not hold such meddling against me or my country, however. He told me he forgave me (us) for taking Panama away from Colombia, reminding me that Teddy Roosevelt helped in fomenting a revolution in order to make a canal there that would be of benefit to the U.S.A.

I was fortunate enough to be escorted around by several local guides to various places of historical interest. The history of the conquest and extermination of the indigenous people by Europeans was brought up more than once, as was the fact that slaves were imported from Africa. This was necessarily brought up to explain the ethnic diversity of the region, but there was no untoward animosity for the unwelcomed immigrants involved. They did not harbor hatred for those who came to their land unbidden, despite the fact they caused more harm than any illegal immigrants ever did to the United States.

While there I saw a white-haired Caucasian gentleman waiting for the elevator that led to the hotel rooms accompanied by a young woman young enough to be his granddaughter. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it wasn’t his granddaughter, since her skin color was so different than his. I’d go so far as to guess that he was there to take advantage of the fact that prostitution is legal in Colombia. If this is true, then the rape of the indigenous people by people with European roots is not a dim and distant memory.

Considering the damage outsiders have caused and are still continuing to cause in Colombia, it is a wonder they haven’t built a wall. It is a wonder that they treat people such as myself as kindly as they do even though I have not learned to speak their language. But the truth is, no wall that humans could build would be as great a barrier as the Andes Mountains and even they were unable to stop unwanted foreigners from entering their country. Similarly, whatever language barriers that may exist can and will be surmounted by genuine goodwill and a desire to get along. The fact is, divisions are only an illusion and we are all one people. Everything we in the United States do affects others, and history shows we have been the victimizer far more often than the victim. As for the people of Colombia, I would like to thank you for your kindness and hospitality.

Random Thoughts On Fascism

Sadly, it appears that fascism is an issue with which we must once again contend. As with any other problem, the better we understand it, the better we can combat it. Since fascism is a somewhat nebulous term, I thought I would share some random thoughts of my own on fascism in order to sketch out an understanding of what it is and how it may best be countered, a few initial shovels full of a foundation upon which we can build a response to an ideology that brings out the very worst in human beings.

Fascism is capitalism’s answer to socialism.

Fascism is, in the end, the only way the big corporations can maintain control. Any lesser form of rule would lead to their overthrow.

You cannot oppose fascism with timid ideas and compromised heroes. Ultimately, the appeal to truth, logic, and humanity cannot be done with pretty speeches and insincere gestures, but in a way that shows genuine passion, commitment, and sacrifice.

There are those among us who cry out against the erasing of the Trail of Tears from Texas textbooks who remained silent as the U.S. instigated wars that caused millions of refugees. They warn against a rise of a new fascism as they gladly grant power to a new Gestapo. They proudly read censored books from decades past while calling for the silencing of voices outside the mainstream media’s narrative.

We are working at fascism from two directions. The Republicans through overt contempt of law, decency, and the pursuit of objective truth, The Democrats for their promotion of war, censorship, and unaccountable intelligence agencies. And whenever they punch at one another, they never punch towards the other’s fascistic tendencies.

Democrats are to Republicans what masochists are to sadists. They may act as though they were the polar opposite but in fact they have a really unhealthy relationship with them. They abhor who Republicans are but reflect wistfully about who they were. They may tell others how they wish to get the upper hand in the relationship, but anyone who knows anything about their history knows it is never going to happen. Should a third-party arrive on the scene, the masochist will reveal his inner sadist and fight tooth and nail for his right to be abused and debased by Republicans. The masochist relies on the sadist to give definition to their lives. When asked, a masochist will be unable to tell you who they are except in relationship to the sadist who gives their live's meaning. This is how fascism begins, by giving sadists willing partners in their sick and twisted perversions. Sadists will come to believe that other people appreciate their sadism, because they have encountered people who actually do. The cruelty and narcissism of the sadist is given legitimacy by the behavior of the masochist.

Fascism becomes acceptable when magic dies. Fascism is not the presence of evil and ugliness so much as the absence of goodness and beauty. Fascism is the death of dreaming, it cannot exist where there is joy or wonder.

Fascism can sneak up on you even as you believe yourself to be fighting against it. Fail to notice the warning signs and before you know it you’re goosestepping and delivering stiff-armed salutes to a goofy-looking dictator. In the name of liberty and freedom you find yourself surrendering you right to free speech and feel afraid all the time of stepping out of line.

It does nothing to say how bad fascists are, the object is to build an alternative. It’s pointless to define yourself as the abnegation of nihilism, for that is not its opposite but its mirror image.

Fascism at its heart is nothing. There is no philosophy or end-game to it other than violence, dominance, and destruction. One cannot truly oppose fascism except with violence, and violence is what it thrives on. You cannot hope to ever eradicate fascism, you can only drive it to the very edges of society, and to do so you must create a well-functioning system at the core. The better functioning the system, the further to the edges of society fascism is pushed. In a truly healthy society, only the most politically, economically, and psychologically impoverished will find any appeal in such an appalling and bankrupt notion as fascism.

Fascism is evil, and you cannot oppose evil with evil. It is like a parent who teaches his child how to be a good person through cruelty mixed with corporal punishment.

Fascism is darkness, which must be confronted with all the light within you.

Fascism is lies, which must be countered by a fearless ability to both perceive and speak truth.

Fascism is ugliness, which must be countered with unguarded expressions of beauty.

Fascism is slavery, and must be opposed by a stubborn insistence on freedom and self-expression. To defeat that which seeks to subordinate through violence we must refuse to capitulate to institutions that do not desire our independence and self-expression.

The darkness of fascism has for years been growing, and in the last few years has really become more obvious. And for years those on the left have been voting for “not darkness”, and it has only gotten darker. In their battle with darkness, they have forgotten to tend the lighthouses.

There is no doubt that capitalists have a preference for fascism over socialism, for rule of law by force rather than any real kind of democracy and public participation. Capitalism itself is an economic system that has as its basic tenet the goal of achieving dominance over others and to take from others whatever one can. To take from customers maximum profit at the least cost. To take from the worker the most one can while giving him the least amount possible in return. Isn’t what happened in Nazi concentration camps merely this idea taken to its logical conclusion? To say that coercion is not an aspect of the capitalist system is to believe that capitalists are driven by something other than profit and that they appreciate the ideals of capitalism more than they do wealth and power. If this were true we would not today have billions of dollars of wealth being created by those in prison with many corporations looking to profit off the labor and the incarceration of these workers. If the capitalist can use coercion, he will. He is driven by his duty to his share holders to do exactly that. To this end he will use government to set the rules in his favor, and as the government works more and more exclusively for the benefit of the powerful, it will become increasingly fascistic.

We are looking at an emerging global fascism, and so few of us seem aware. So many of us, on the left and the right, waste our time and energy bickering with each other over lesser issues while supporting a fascistic agenda, all the while believing ourselves enlightened, caring, and courageous.

Whatever ugliness the United States is going through at the moment, I don't believe it can be compared to Germany in the lead-up to Nazism. For one thing, The U.S. has always been too much of a melting pot to coalesce around a racial/nationalist leader. For another, it does not have a history of obedience to state that Germany had. The U.S. is not a nation from which its malcontents fled, but a nation the malcontents of the world have fled to.

Nevertheless, when a majority of the population finds it preferable to allow others to lead them rather than be active forces in the community and in their own lives, fascism will thrive.