This Dragon...

 

Image source: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Red_dragon

© October 22, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Steve Scalise once described himself as “David Duke without the baggage.”

David Duke was a grand dragon and avowed white supremacist.

Fooled by Ron Stallworth in the book and movie “Black Klansman.”

Any supremacy is anathema to democracy.

 

It is interesting that Steve Scalise, the minority whip counter on the Republican side of the House, is urging his colleagues to vote NO on holding his br’er fascist, Steve Bannon, in criminal contempt of Congress,

In allegiance to a demagogue that lost the 2020 election, the Senate, and the House,

 

If the rule of law is subject to “situational nihilism.”

(Brian Williams, The 11th Hour, MSNBC),

Then the law as we thought we knew it is essentially moot.

Only nine Republicans in the House followed The Constitution to hold Bannon in contempt of Congress with all of the Democrats,

Meaning all the Republicans who voted against it are in contempt of their [own] office,

 

Now, “Robert Lewis, Rufus, and Frog” along with “Billy Bob, Cooter, and Skeeter” will all declare themselves Republicans and ignore any subpoenas sent to them,

Reduced to a notion by the man whose publicly stated aim was to “deconstruct the administrative state.”

Good luck running courts large and small across the nation.

Or, for that matter: the United States.

 

‘Murica is open to conspiracy theories,

Because its citizens have been lied to:

 

The overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh and the installation of the Shah by the CIA and MI6 in 1953,

Nationalizing oil reserves gained the ire of the intelligence services and British Petroleum,

 

The sixties was an assassination decade,

President Kennedy,

Then, Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby,

Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy by Sirhan, Sirhan,

 

There’s still a group that doesn’t believe we went to the moon,

Yet aliens are somehow interested in “little-old-us”;

Bigfoot and Nessie are natural creatures, and the world post-Apollo is either flat or donut-shaped (I’m not kidding).

 

Follow that with “I’m not a crook” Richard Nixon, “we’re not selling arms for hostages” Ronald Reagan, it’s no wonder trust in institutions other than the military is at an all-time low.

 

Roger Ailes and Rush Limbaugh appealed to fellow jowl-faced fascists that consider Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion an existential crisis,

 

As their impish clone, Tucker Carlson parrots “replacement theory,”

 

“Nature abhors a vacuum,” and provocateurs like Alex Jones are more than happy to fill the trust void.

 

Add to that the 30,000+ COVFEFE whoppers of the last Oval Office occupant and the death toll his lies bore.

At least Brazil is considering holding Jair Bolsonaro responsible for crimes against humanity for 100,000+ dead. Our body count is higher. “U-S-A!” “U-S-A!”

 

Senator Angus King has evolved on the filibuster. He’s willing to change the rules so voting rights can get passed.

However, the dragon reared its head to “conserve” the status quo of white supremacy, maintaining this Jim Crow relic.

Senator Tim Scott (“America is not racist”) needs a new mirror and an active human soul to inhabit his skin bag.

 

To quote a 2020 tweet from someone named Beau Willimon, succinctly comparing Capitalism, Socialism, Authoritarianism, and Democracy:

 

“Let’s get something straight:

“Capitalism & Socialism are economic systems,

“Authoritarianism & Democracy are political systems,

“Socialism is not inherently authoritarian,

“Capitalism is not inherently democratic,

“‘Authoritarian capitalism is what Republicans are aiming for,”

 

No one is a capitalist unless you own the means of production,

From janitor to Ph.D.,

If you labor in a profession,

You’re part of the proletariat!

 

The only thing that makes sense of their madness,

Is despite what they say they admire in The Constitution,

They want to reduce all of us,

To old world “lords and serfs,”

Paupers begging for alms,

Children laborers,

More like “The Hunger Games” than the Declaration of Independence!

 

Our democracy can no longer afford to ride this leviathan and continue to exist.

 

Knowing that their heads will blow up like teenage zits,

The last line is for religious hypocrites,

 

“And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.” Revelations 12:3

HB 3979 or, Goebbels in Texas...

 

Goebbels' wife had [Jewish] father, new documents show, Times of Israel

© October 15, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

There is NO “alternative view” of the Holocaust!

Just like there’s no such thing as “alternative facts.”

 

It’s an oxymoron (noun): a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g., faith unfaithful kept him falsely true ).

Or, military intelligence,

Alternative facts,

Conservative intellectuals,

And the real kicker: “The UNITED States.”

 

The fact:

Six million Jews were worked to death, raped, starved, shot, slaughtered, branded like cattle, cataloged on IBM systems, burned in ovens, and buried in unmarked graves,

There’s no alternative view to that!

 

For that matter:

There is no alternate way to view slavery!

Blaming it on rival chieftains selling other tribespeople,

It doesn’t absolve the Eagle of kidnapping,

Or murder by suicide by those who cast themselves in the ocean’s Middle Passage,

Rather than go to an unknown place where their language, customs, and religion beat out of them,

America didn’t kidnap degenerates,

They stole astronomers, doctors, lawyers, physicists,

Prince Hall Masons started because Scottish Rites rejected him,

The same for black people in balconies at Methodist churches,

That had to go through back doors to get to their perches,

There are black fraternities and sororities because the white ones didn’t want them,

Except as servants,

Historically Black Colleges and Universities exist,

Because Duke, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale wouldn’t have them,

Yet their exchequers are fat from enslaved Africans,

No “Ivy Leagues” have discussed reparations,

Nor entrance adjustment since the SAT scandal,

Hawaii used to be a sovereign nation the US took,

Yet no support for DC Statehood,

 

Real history should make you think,

Real history should make you angry,

Real history should make you weep,

 

Real history should disturb your comfortable sense of place,

In a hierarchy designed to make sure you never have to think critically,

 

If your history class isn’t doing that,

It’s state-sponsored propaganda.

 

South Lake might as well be South Africa during Apartheid,

“Ruby Bridges Goes to School” is now subversive?

The same for Martin Luther King’s “Why We Can't-Wait,”

And “Letter From [a] Birmingham Jail,”

Texas eliminates mention of slavery,

Instead, they want to call them “migrant workers,”

That I assume wore chains and shackles for fashion?

“Remember [that the] Alamo” was because Mexico didn’t practice slavery,

And allowed asylum for former slaves escaping to their territory,

When did you eliminate the suicide prevention line for LGBT teens?

When does the State of Texas start the public book burning?

When did the Republic of Texas go full Gilead?

“Don’t Texas Virginia” is an epithet!

 

Domitian was the Roman Emperor John of Patmos wrote,

About in code when he said:

Six-hundred, threescore, and six,

The name Domitian as numbered in the Greek alphabet,

He was a narcissist who encouraged a cult of personality,

Nominated himself perpetual censor of public morals,

Considered a tyrant by the Roman Senate,

Assassinated by court officials Common Era 96,

Damnatio Memoriae: condemnation of memory and public erasure by the same Senate,

 

HB 3979 solves a problem that isn’t happening,

CRT is in graduate and law school,

Just like looking for voter fraud when its frequency is one-in-a-billion cast,

Just like six-week heartbeat bills doesn’t curtail rape,

 

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

 

“The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic, and/or military consequences of the lie.

 

“It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

 

Joseph Goebbels

 

It would help if you had the proper perspective on how this is affecting us,

HB 3979 is Joseph Goebbels in Texas.

Pandora Papers...

 

Image Source: The Guardian

© October 6, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Government leaders, monarchs, billionaires, A-list entertainers, and criminals: please define the differences.

 

The Pandora Papers reinforced what most were already aware of,

A “nation of laws, and not of men”: John Adams words that are superfluous,

Six hundred families have lobbyists and veto power over the rest of us,

When a large percentage wants climate action, free college, gun control, universal healthcare, their legislative puppets ignore us,

They’d instead push emotional buttons than solve problems for the republic,

Hate and division is the fuel they use to keep elected office,

And please, American oligarchs,

Elected officials go from six-figure salaries to multimillionaire status,

Under-the-table shenanigans,

It explains Kristen Sinema’s switch from firebrand liberal,

To airhead dismissive,

Answering reporters’, she’s “next to the elevator,” but not to her constituents,

Explains Joe Manchin not wanting shutoff of the dark money spigot,

Nor the coal mine he and his son-in-law owns,

They’re not “public servants,” but political prostitutes!

 

How is Moscow Mitch re-elected with an 18% approval rating?

The wealthiest senator on Capitol Hill from arguably the nation’s poorest state?

 

Government leaders, monarchs, billionaires, A-list entertainers, and criminals hide their wealth in the same overseas constructs,

 

The Pandora Papers

Published during a pandemic,

Telling us what we already suspected,

Sociopaths engineered society for their benefit,

Riding penis spaceships for ten-minute joyrides,

Warping the meaning of the “Overview Effect,”

In a brief epiphany of our “pale blue dot,”

Where people are dying,

They’ve always been socially distant,

Living in McMansion gated communities and half BILLION dollars yachts,

There’s a new billionaire created in America every seventeen hours,

A new super criminal to commit grand theft,

Not a single oligarch has become Batman yet,

Nor have any mentioned a society, or league of justice,

They are stochastic terrorists,

Gaslighting the proletariat,

Exacerbating flaws of “others”:

 

Afghanis, Asians, Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ, Women, whose duty is to serve them,

That’s the reason for this obsession with their uterus,

 

Government leaders, monarchs, billionaires, A-list entertainers, and criminals hide their wealth in the same overseas constructs,

 

Please let me know what the difference is,

Answer: There are none.

 

Organized labor, beyond labor unions,

Are using social media to organize walkouts,

This pandemic has made them reflect:

Life’s too short for taking this bullshit,

We work harder than any other nation,

We have fewer benefits than our democratic equivalents,

Who manages to squeeze in 35-hour workweeks, no night shifts or weekends, maternity/paternity leave, three weeks off, and daily siestas,

All paid for by taxing the rich,

Creating a shared commons,

All citizens rub elbows in the same hospitals, grocery stores, schools, and malls,

The violence you’re starting to see there,

Are from the European sociopaths trying to export our grift,

We have the highest infant mortality, lowest life expectancy, and an epidemic of gun violence,

We puff up our chest and say, “American Exceptionalism,”

That is the facade, the flimflam, the hoodwink, the boondoggle,

 

The Pandora Papers conclusively proved,

The real “Boys in the Hood” are in corporate boardrooms!

Terminator...

 

Image Source: https://imgflip.com/i/28fxtn

© October 5, 2021, the Griot Poet

Source: Why Zuck is Betting on Social Collapse | by Umair Haque | Eudaimonia and Co

Link: https://eand.co/why-zuck-is-betting-on-social-collapse-b9091b5aca74

 

Is [Facebook] Skynet?

Hiding behind the First Amendment,

Social media,

Shielded by section 230,

Of the Communications Decency Act,

 

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider,”

 

The platform super spreads hate speech,

Boogaloo Boi murdered a police officer in Oakland,

Allowing domestic terrorists

To Livestream murders and potential bombing attacks,

Border patrol agents

Before lassoing Haitian immigrants,

Had secret Facebook groups!

Anti-vaccine disinformation,

Spreads to black, indigenous people of color,

Encouraging vaccine hesitancy,

Foreign governments are encouraging the crisis at the US-Mexican border,

The “Big Lie” is spreading at light speed,

Legal fiats in municipalities,

To present obstacles to certain people and keep them from voting,

 

Pontius Pilote washes his hands wearing a hoodie,

His business card was saying: “I’m CEO, bitch!”

Algorithms make teen girls anorexic and suicidal,

Make their dads storm and defecate at the US Capitol,

 

In the fictional world,

Myles Dyson of Cyberdyne Systems,

Reverse engineering the CPU of T-800,

Creating the destruction that was coming,

Had the decency and common sense to feel regret,

Creating inadvertent dystopia to his chagrin,

Of cyborgs grinding the skulls of men,

Into dust on the dry bones beneath them,

No time travel or granddaughter paradoxes to fix this,

Social media is enabling a Cyborg Zombie Apocalypse,

Mark Zuckerberg [apparently] doesn’t give a shit,

In his McMansion and protected Cul de Sac,

Teachers and medical staff screamed at in grocery stores,

Many so tired, they’re leaving their professions,

Lies from Arkham Asylum expanded on Facebook,

 

I’m not sure Zuck’s gotten his emotional chip yet,

He’s the perfect hipster sociopath,

Internal studies showed the adverse effects,

Of the Internet addiction, he’s been peddling,

Suicidal ideation, genocide, attempts at insurrection, fascist dictatorships,

The man who somehow pulls off looking like Eddie Haskell from “Leave It To Beaver” and Data from Star Trek gave no reflection,

Dodges responsibility in congressional testimony,

From the insular world of his mansion and yacht, he’s created,

Facebook sold itself as bringing the world together,

Instead, its business model is sowing chaos,

“Wars, and rumors of wars” from scrolls to laptops,

What did he talk to Orange Satan [about]?

No readout on Dumbo Gambino’s meetings with his puppet master Putin,

The monster oligarch to whom he gave deference,

To everyone else abject COVFEFE ignorance,

Zuckerberg is betting big on societal collapse.

 

So-called “strongmen” are [actually] weak,

Wanting power in perpetuity; too afraid of relinquishing it in a fair fight,

It’s why they tend to cheat,

It’s why they tend to think of elections as “fake” or “rigged,”

CPAC is meeting next year in Vicktor Orban’s Budapest,

After Tucker Carlson interviewed the fascist,

Planting the seed of civil war in frightened ditto heads,

Who saw their numbers dwindled in a curtailed census,

John Milton said: “better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,”

It doesn’t sound like a democratic republic,

The party is telling us what they’re going to do if they regain office,

Bipartisanship requires rational actors,

These yahoos are NOT!

They’re not even on the same planet!

 

Bertrand Russell said:

 

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

 

My main problem with Democrats is,

They are afraid to seize power, or wield it,

They bring butter knives to gunfights,

Progressives should change their self pejorative,

To simply “Pragmatic,”

Most of the country is WITH them,

On raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15,

On paid maternity and paternity leave,

Like other civilized countries,

Expanding green technologies,

Making elections freer, fairer, and a federal holiday,

Medicare expansion of glasses and hearing aids,

Free community college reduces the cost of four-year universities,

Making a more intelligent electorate to Karl Rove’s chagrin,

The Pragmatic back down when the fascists label them “communists,”

Instead of making the opposition define what they meant,

When they draw the line, BOLDLY step over it!

Bullies all back down when confronted,

They have (for the moment) the Executive, the House, and the Senate,

Yet, they act like the dog who caught the car,

And once latched onto the bumper, didn’t know what to do with it,

 

Emphasis should be made on this,

You can ONLY make money on a living planet!

Venus has no stock markets.

Star Wars and Star Trek Facebook groups exist,

So do they for QANON and violent domestic terrorists,

We don’t have any spare starships,

For humanity to leave once the world is useless,

Zuckerberg would join Bezos, Branson, and Musk if we did,

Make us all wave goodbye as they exited,

The world their greed laid a smoldering ruin,

Cryogenic dreaming of new planets to rule,

The sociopaths will set up fiefdoms on other planets,

While trying to subjugate those worlds’ inhabitants,

 

If successful in this expansion of Nazism,

Their descendants will move onto other planets,

Colonization is guaranteed death for flora, fauna, and inhabitants,

Devouring their resources, like galactic locusts.

Your vote has COSMIC significance.

Of whether we’re a Terran Empire or Federation of Planets!

Apolitical...

Image source: https://twitter.com/HusnaPervez/status/1171402351841894406/photo/1 

 

© October 2, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Some say I’m a political poet,

Poets, my friend Ivanhoe said, are “prophets of eternal truths,”

[This] is why this line got my creative juices flowing:

 

“I’m just not that into politics.”

 

A meme shared on Facebook by my friend, Thom the World Poet,

Inspiring this poetic rift:

 

Your boss is into politics,

So much so, his company hires lobbyists,

That is not in the US Constitution,

Yet they roost on Capitol Hill,

Bending times, laws, biology, physics:

 

“Smoking doesn’t cause lung cancer.”

“Climate change is a myth.”

"Coronavirus is a hoax."

"The election is rigged."

Wait a minute: that was the previous mistake playing president.

I digress:

Five ounces of crack cocaine: a life sentence,

Five ounces of powdered cocaine: counseling, and a slap on the wrist,

 

Look at the different treatments in the Crack and Opioid epidemics,

One requires for-profit prisons, the other licensed counselors,

Look at how society treated AIDS before crossing into heterosexual communities,

Sermonizing stopped, and as suddenly as it was, it by hypocritical epiphany wasn’t “God’s punishment,”

Some might call it witchcraft,

White supremacy is a form of sorcery,

Metaphorically depicted in “Lovecraft County,”

In other nations, it’s called corruption and bribery,

 

Your insurance company is into politics,

Hiring the same wizard lobbyists,

The gist is to increase shareholder equity,

Not negotiating lower prices for your policy,

Or medication to treat your maladies,

Using “acts of God” to deny you coverage,

When you need to use the policy you paid for monthly,

It’s why they rail against “socialism,”

Unless it’s Wall Street bailouts that benefit them,

Libertarians on YOUR benefits, Marxists with THEIRS,

Because a universal healthcare system would make executive dinosaurs obsolescent,

 

Your landlord is into politics,

His owner hired lobbyists,

It’s why your “too damn high” rent keeps rising,

But your square footage is standing pat,

While your amenities have gone flat,

 

Real estate was always into politics,

Redlining is it explicitly,

Refusing to sell to African Americans,

Segregating us in ghettos,

Conveniently located next to sewage treatment plants, smokestacks, and toxic landfills,

Lead pipes replaced with PVC in East Austin gentrified communities,

As the descendants of the original residents priced out of their inheritance,

Not allowing us to build equity or wealth,

Consigning generations of progeny to adverse living conditions and poverty,

Have you ever heard of restrictive covenants?

Specific neighborhoods in West Austin didn’t allow Lansbury/Hughes “Raisins in the Sun” to purchase,

Or that Bruce Beach in California stolen from the Bruce family,

One hundred years ago by the Ku Klux Klan?

Bruce Beach is a multimillion-dollar piece of real estate,

Returned to its rightful owners one hundred years later,

The first time this country has tried reparations,

Maybe Central Park, New York, Wilmington, North Carolina, Rosewood, Florida, and Tulsa, Oklahoma are next?

 

Your air is political,

Your water is political,

Your land is political,

Your insurance is political,

Poetry is political,

It’s crucial whether your dog catcher or sheriff is an empath or a sociopath,

Whether we go to war is political,

Whoever “we the people” place in power with the nuclear codes is political,

And can decide if we go forward to “green new deal” energy independence,

Or continue in fossil fuel “Hunger Games” serfdom debasement,

And can decide if the species has continuance,

Don’t be so arrogant:

The dinosaurs ended by the Chicxulub impactor,

They did not know, or had politicians or scientists to factor,

In how they met their ends,

If we end, Earth will have continuance,

If our “mutually assured destruction” doesn’t involve radiation,

A new matrix will rise in our absence,

A more peaceful sapient hopefully after this Ragnarok,

If you haven’t caught the gist of this rift,

I want our evolution and continuance:

 

“I’m just not that into politics” is the height of willful ignorance.