Hillary: Obscurity Awaits

You still don’t get it.

It’s because James Comey. Putin and his merry minions of hackers, acting according to his Hillary-hate hard-on. It’s those spoiled Millennials, for first voting wrong and then not enough. And the Evangelicals, because they believe that you’re going to hell and hope you do. Those “progressive” radicals on the Far Left…traitors, the lot of them. That once again, American misogyny was more powerful than rights or justice. Debbie Wassermann Schultz, the blabbermouth, and Huma Abedin, whose irredeemably slimy husband spread cooties all over the whole campaign (and goddamn you, too, Bill). Bernie–that backstabbing, rabble-rousing, obnoxiously earnest, goody-two-shoes old coot–just couldn’t face the inevitability of your legacy.

Though you can’t blame the African-Americans for low voter turn out, because they are being disenfranchised, or think they’re being disenfranchised, or maybe they didn’t have car fare or…well, it’s not their fault (much). The Muslims? Well, they were too afraid to vote, of course…somebody might think they were terrorists. The Mexicans? That’s a tough one, isn’t it? And 53% of white women voted for Trump, because…because…because maybe sexism is so deeply entrenched into our culture that even some educated women are too ignorant or because they were afraid of their husbands, or were filled with irresistible self-loathing or were paranoid that somebody could peek over their shoulders while they were voting…and tell their husbands they didn’t vote right.

The white working class? Ha. Well, it certainly isn’t your fault that a bunch of hate-humping racists and misogynists and deplorable people et al voted against you…right? Those people always vote against their best interests.

It just isn’t fair. They cheated. The barbarians stood on their hind legs and got uppity. Black folks are ungrateful, Mexicans would rather be called rapists, women are traitorous lemmings–including your own employees…especially your own employees–the bible thumpers voted Leviticus, goddamn Bernie and his Deadhead-loyal band of Bernie Bros, that goddamned penis-envying commie, getting you back for all those times you totally cock-blocked him,and fuck YOU, Comey…fuck you until you fucking die. 

Fuck every one of them. This was your turn. Forty years of making your bones in politics and how do they repay you? By electing a psychopathic man-toddler whose sole contribution to history will be as the only man who could make Dubya look like Abraham Lincoln. Cheaters. Traitors. Ingrates. Backstabbing “progressives”. Overcompensating Commie. All of that work. A lifetime of work and they spat in your face. Fuck them. And fuck you, too. Fuck all y’all. It isn’t fair, this wasn’t supposed to happen, illegal, unethical, propaganda, deplorable…etc etc, ibid, ditto, what I just said, rinse and repeat.

As my redneck cousin from Alabama would say: “Boo-fucking-hoo. My heart pumps piss.”

For about 24 hours post-election, I did feel some mild sympathy, mostly because I can’t imagine how humiliating it must be to lose to the Donald the Douchebag. I can’t even imagine who would be worse. Charles Manson, maybe, or my neighbor’s half-blind, retarded chihuahua, who spends his days running into walls, attacking the walls for being there and running into them again in the process…but at least he is a somewhat sympathetic character.

Harsh comeuppance, I know. So, in spite of my very acrimonious, very public split with the Democratic Party, I bit my lip and felt your pain…but then you opened your goddamned mouth and I remembered all over again what drove me to renounce my membership as a fourth generation democrat: you don’t have a clue…and it’s deliberate.

But since you are so goddamned determined to hide behind that deliberate obtuseness, let me lay it out for you: it’s YOUR fault you lost.

Or, more precisely, it is the democratic party who lost; nominating you was just another sign of their complete blind arrogance and how completely out of touch with the country they are…still, you are the person who best personifies what the democratic party has become: elitist. Conservative. Status Quo. Terrified of meaningful change (hint: when you can’t say the word “progressive” without sneering, that’s a very thin disguise for saying you have no intention of changing anything because things are just swell behind your gated community) and so alarmingly blind as to what the country needs or even the fucking party needs, that they actually step aside and nominated you, because, well…”It’s her turn”.

 

This isn’t the fucking Oscars; you don’t get an award just because you never won an award.

But by god, that is the direction they took and ignored millions of those icky progressives who got behind the guy who was there because he wanted change.  And that appalled all of you, because that would mean fucking off Wall Street, taking off your white gloves and mingling with the Great Unwashed Masses, because–are you listening, Hillary?–THAT is why you lost: you–as the chosen representative of this party of ridiculous white, affluent Beautiful People–cannot stand speaking to factory workers. Vets. Plumbers. Sales clerks. Farmers. Mechanics. Anybody, pretty much, who isn’t college educated, privileged and WHITE. I don’t want to hear about Obama; President Spock is hardly representative of the way most black people live any more than you are emblematic of the way most white people live.

See, most people are not college educated, believe it or not…and, thanks to you, even fewer people will now have the chance. Most people are working folk. They don’t live in gated communities. Their kids don’t go to private school. There are more people who build bridges than there are those who design bridges and it’s a good goddamn thing, because it really doesn’t make a shit if there is no one to build them, does it? But you–and the rest of the party–truly don’t seem to realize this. You are so trapped behind your ivy league ivory tower that you don’t seem to realize that this party abandoned the working class the moment James Carville posted the sign: “It’s the economy, stupid”.

Call them racists. Call them misogynists. Call them “deplorables”…as long as you don’t have to actually call them, darling, because let’s face it: they’re NOKD.

Well…Trump called. So have all of those other lying republican bastards…and that’s exactly what they do LIE and dangle red herrings like the little lord jesus and blame black people for crime, hispanic people for taking the jobs they really didn’t want in the first place, slut-shame the women, vilify the Muslims and most of all FUCK the poor, because THEY are the root of why these people–many of whom ARE poor and are brainwashed into thinking that they are busting their asses working for shit to support somebody else. Why are they dumb enough to believe it? Because that is what they are told. Why don’t they disbelieve it?

BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T BOTHER TELLING THEM THE TRUTH.

You wrote off millions of hardworking people–MILLIONS–as deplorables…and that is the only thing you said about them at all. You had no interest in listening to their real world problems, accused them of being selfish for not wanting to pay into a health care plan that millions of them weren’t even eligible for…because they were too fucking poor…you really don’t have a clue what it really was that they wanted…and they don’t either. Because they had some shameless moron who stoked whatever resentments they might be nursing–most of which were for the wrong reason–and told them everything he was going to STOP. He never really made any promises to do for them…only against others. And he fed into that class resentment that was caused by the other Clinton administration and was fanned into overdrive under the President Spock administration, that master of, “I will not deign to address that person” style domestic diplomacy.

So they hear about the evils of welfare, not corporate welfare. They fear Muslim extremist terrorism without hearing that even Homeland Security considers good ol’ ‘Murikan domestic terrorism a far greater threat. That abortions are being conducted on a fucking 24/7 conveyor belt, that undocumented workers can actually vote at all, much gain some unfair advantage on the other candidate. That black people are little more than out of control animals and that inner cities are little more than…jungles… One billion Muslims want to kill us all. Job numbers are worse than they ever have been. Raising the minimum wage would cause massive unemployment. Climate change is just some bullshit these con artist scientists are making up to get rich. Obamacare is the worst thing that has happened to this country and their way…something about vouchers? the free market? I dunno, something…is all they would need.

They’re not stupid. Dangerously naive and very often, yes–ignorant…but ignorant doesn’t mean stupid; it means they don’t have knowledge of facts because the people who should be championing them and working around the clock to inform them on what the real numbers are and the real consequences of the lies are and who the villain actually is…don’t bother. Many of these people don’t actually believe Trump is worth a shit…their vote was a big FUCK YOU to the party who made it so painfully clear what their opinion was of them: deplorables. And even if Trump is a disaster, they have very good reason to believe that you would be worse…because you didn’t even pretend to give a shit about them.

Nor did you care about the blacks–newsflash: visiting Spelman College is NOT outreach into the black community–nor did you care about the Hispanics, nor the Muslims or women. You gave brief lip service to them, sure…but let’s face it–you thought you had a lock. You believed that, “Of course, they’re going to vote for me…they’d be crazy to vote for Trump!!” without understanding that, well…they don’t have to vote at all. 53% of white women voted…for…TRUMP. That, in and of itself, should be your shame.

This election should’ve been a slam-dunk. A child should have won over Trump. I would pull out a raving, schizophrenic, crankhead out of the sewer and vote for them over Trump…and it would have taken so little to convince millions of other people to do likewise. But you didn’t bother. You addressed your people and your people alone: affluent, educated, privileged white people, who I suppose, were supposed to save the day for everybody else they didn’t give a shit about.

No, Hillary. Comey didn’t cost you this election. Nor did the Millennials or Bernie or misogynists or racists or evangelicals or those loathsome “progressives”. It’s not Huma Abedin’s repulsive husband’s fault. It wasn’t your complete ineptitude with basic IT security. It wasn’t even Putin (and don’t flatter yourself, Vlad…you really have very little to do with this descent into Dark Ages, 2.0).

It is your fault. It is the fault of a party that has become so bloated and meaningless that it should be completely razed and rebuilt from the ground up…if at all. You had a million opportunities–you could have listened to Bernie’s people. You could have actually even one time stepped outside your comfort zone and drank a fucking glass of ice tea at a mom and pop place. Stopped by Harlem for an impromptu visit. Disavowed some of the truly troublesome Wall Street bastards. You could have fucking apologized for calling millions of people “deplorables”…and MEANT IT…or even made a pretense of giving a shit about any of those people who turned to Il Duce Dumbass.

This is YOUR fault, you and the rest of that stale, wealthy, hyper-educated, despicably over-privileged, conservative, Neo-Reaganian crew you have at Democrat headquarters. And even now, when you could be out working with all of us who are fucking well going to pay and pay badly, helping us form some sort of plan, organizing for the resistance, putting people into place who can do some clean up in the mid-elections, or do any goddamn thing at all, you are proving to all of us just how weak of a leader you would have been by fucking whingeing on about how unfair it is that you lost.

And you did. You lost…and you lost it for all of us. So if you can’t stop whining about how you wuz robbed and take some action to help us clean your shit up…then just shut the fuck up. Nobody cares what you have to say anymore…just like you didn’t care about what anybody else said before November 8th.

P.S. Go…away.

 

God Bless the Whores

(I actually set out to write about a pet rant of mine: when you outlaw sex workers, you support trafficking. I believe that with everything I’ve got. And I will post this argument again; this is just some weird thing which sang in my head. Not a poet–good god, I am NOT a poet–but just a…thing. Take it as you please).

“Belle”–Amsterdam’s tribute to the ladies who work in the Red Light District: Inscribed is this message:”Respect Sex Workers All Over the World”.

God bless the whores, and the strippers, too. Phone sex actresses, internet girls and video chicks, bless them all. God bless the ho, the slut, the THOT or any other woman who uses their body as they please.

God damn the pimps, traffickers and modern day slave traders. Most of all, goddamn the johns who pay for their destruction. Bloodsuckers, all of them leeches—not predator, but parasites—engorged, glorified ticks. They should be exiled from humanity for 25-life.

God damn the roofie rapists, false friends and gang-bangers. Encouraged by culture, unpunished by law—tales of promiscuity or incapacity transform a woman into fuck-meat…and all men entitled.

God damn the predators, the violent, the killers—the cowards who exploit those in an unfair caste system. God damn the cops who say sex workers are impossible to rape, then file their murders under No Humans Involved. God damn police stings, which arrests only the victims and god damn the judges who sentence them with boredom and distaste.

And god damn the hypocritical women–closeted republicans, I’m thinking–who cherry-pick women’s bodies: liberating their wombs and controlling the rest. They want to ban porn, stripping and—lotsa luck—prostitution, to save sex workers from themselves. Modern days Carrie Nations…and likewise too obtuse to see that criminalizing the sex trade benefits  only the black market…i.e. the sex  trade becomes the slave trade.

So God bless the sex workers and free the slaves. Prohibition built criminal empires; legalize sex work and the slave trade empire will crumble. A woman’s right to her body should be absolute, without  any of the “take backsies” caveats of party line feminists. That hypocrisy weakens our cause. True feminism is about freedom of choice; anti-feminism only shames sex workers and impedes their choices…little wonder why they (and many women in general) hold the whole feminist movement suspect. Control one woman’s body and you control us all; liberate it and you empower us all. You don’t have to approve…and, quite frankly, no one gives a shit if you do.

Don’t Blame Zuckerberg For the Election (Blame Yourself for being Owned), Part I

Rest assured, Zuckerberg will never be this cool.

Sigh. I was hoping I could Facebook-free for six months before writing this blog–six months sounds a lot more legitimate than three months–but with all the controversy over Fake News-gate, it just can’t wait.

To preface this–because I’m about to defend him and I hate that I have to–I can’t stand that little weenie Zuckerberg. He reminds me of one of those guys who are always whining about being “friend-zoned”–you know, the “I’m such a nice guy, I was nice to her and she didn’t want to fuck me, WOMEN ONLY LIKE ASSHOLES” whiners, except about everybody who ever dared criticize him. 

I shall save that for another day.

In Zuckerberg’s case, he is the very prototype of the friend-zone guy who has billions of dollars and waaay too much power. In other words, he is a resentful, petty little tyrant who can afford to buy a football team to kick your ass, so you better just better watch yourself, dude!

Having said that, quit blaming Zuckerberg for the election. Partly, because it’s ridiculous to expect a Junior Fascist to check everything for accuracy; he is far too occupied  with rubbing his hands together and squeaking his evil laugh–world domination, LOLs. No. Well, yeah…but that’s not why. First of all, Zuckerberg is congenitally humorless, which means he overreacts to criticism…and he’s getting mighty defensive about being accused of allowing “fake news” to flood Facebook and, hypothetically, bringing about the rise of the Orange Empire. For the record, Zuckerberg has donated huge amounts of money to liberal causes and is educated, after all, which gives him a 90% chance of NOT being a Trump supporter. Which is probably why he’s getting all shrill about being blamed for “fake news” cropping up on Facebook…and trying to double down on his already disturbingly rightwing propensity for censorship…and not just of pictures icky breastfeeding mothers, either.

Anybody who knows me for maybe five minutes knows that I am the fiercest First Amendment proponent out there. Whatever is left of our “democracy” begins and ends right there; no other freedoms are possible without it. So…unless you’re are using language which would clearly incite violence, I’m okay with even the vilest people saying even viler things. It is a necessary evil to protect one of the few cool things left about this country and I will go down swinging before I give on that. And Zuckerberg is already a little too fastidious about that sort of thing.

Don’t believe me? Well, if you’re not too terribly needy, try this little experiment: go on Facebook and write a long, outrageously insulting status on Zuckerberg. I mean, go brutal. If you’re not feeling terribly creative, you can borrow some of mine: “Herr Weenie”, “Dork in the Hood”, “geeked-out goonie with more power than penis”, “crypto-fascist little creep”, “Skippy Stalin of his electronic banana republic” etc. Think I’m cruel? Okay, let me give you some context. I was already steaming over his foot-stamping edict that forced members to use their legal name, issued with typical peevish Marky-Mark tones: “People should have to use their legal name!” Achtung!! Der Dorker has spoken. No allowances for nom de plumes, for performers, like some wonderful burlesque and drag folks I know, nor even any allowance for people who might have very legitimate reasons for not using their legal name, like work discretion or even women hiding from abusers and/or stalkers.

“I am TOO, a demon!!”

Personally? I would have had a lot more respect for him if he just admitted what we all know, anyway: “Without your legal name, I can’t sell every single bit of your personal information and the information of everybody on your friends list and contact information to anybody willing to pay the price.” 

And if you didn’t already know this, yes…really.

Anyway, one of the people I cherish most in the world was being harassed–scary harassed–on Facebook. Since they refused to help, she altered her very unique name slightly to resemble a famous place. Somehow, they found out and were demanding that she send them a scan of a government-approved photo ID or they would suspend her account.

I felt…provoked; I posted as much.

Aaaaand suddenly, I was in social media Siberia. I mean, no matter what I posted–political, humorous, serious, heartfelt, unhinged–crickets. For…weeks. MB thought maybe I was being a little paranoid (as he has said so often in the past and is bound to for the rest of our lives), so I conducted a poll amongst my closest friends/family. They hadn’t seen anything–at all–from me in weeks. Since I had a habit of suddenly getting bored and fucking off FB for days or weeks at a time, they just assumed that was what happened.

Eventually, I served out my sentence and social media civilization resumed. In the meantime, my oppressed Facebook VIP cleverly added a punctuation mark to her name and et voila! she was welcomed back into the fold. But then other little Zuckerberg crackdowns would occur and I would go off on one of my tirades and find myself again cut adrift for a few weeks and then slowly I would be allowed to return.

Seriously–give it a try. He really is that petty.  And it’s not just me or (almost literally) the rest of the world; Zuckerberg-style censorship is swift, arbitrary, bewildering (so…it’s okay for Syrian grandmas to post pics of boiling ISIS heads, but–ew, cooties!–over a non-sexualized boob? Yep) and, apparently, non-negotiable. It would not surprise me at all to learn that he has his own personal schutzstaffel hired solely for that purpose…and I have zero doubt that he will go on a Stalinesque purge of any perceived “fake news”.

But what the hell is “fake news”? I mean, as far as I’m concerned, FOX is fake news. Lately, CNN is fake news. As is Alter-net or any number of shrieking yellow journalistic media outlets. News, like history, is fluid and inherently subjective; having somebody as thin-skinned and ruthless as Zuckerberg approve or reject THE TRUTH is pretty chilling. It would be better to have hundreds of items from the old Weekly World News (sigh…miss you ridiculous hacks) than one precise, Zuckerberg-approved, hyper-fact-checked article in my feed.

So, how do you know what is “fake news” or not? It’s called fucking judgment, people! READ. Read from multiple, established outlets and then a few underground sources, too. Check Snope’s and PolitiFact and Glenn Kessler. Read the same story from multiple perspectives and it will become fairly apparent what is utter bullshit and what is good old-fashioned, all-American journalistic bias.

As the X-Files contradictory tagline went: The truth is out there…nah. Not really. Trust no one.

I’m not done with you, Zuckerberg; Part II of what might be a never ending series of why you really need to free yourself from Facebook is…imminent

Free yourself. Take back your mind. Fight for your soul.

.

Don’t Blame Facebook…

I am now entering month three of being Facebook-free and will, at any moment now, post the results (SPOILER: it’s more harmful than it seems). But, as much as I loathe that little bastard Zuckerberg, I gotta give him a pass on the “fake news” scandal on Facebook. It’s not his fault that people got suckered into Trump propaganda; it would literally be impossible for him to control all aspects over his blue print to Rule The World.

But until then, my advice to people who feel they’ve been suckered: DON’T GET YOUR FUCKING NEWS FROM FACEBOOK.

That’s all for now.

Thank God I have Facebook to inform my vote…

This…wasn’t supposed to happen.

 

Just for the record, I wasn’t at all surprised that Trump won; in fact, I was surprised that so many others were surprised. I wasn’t surprised, because by this point, I had become thoroughly disgusted with the democrats, whom I blame even more than the republicans for the creation of President Clown.

But nobody was more shocked than Donald “I’m a Winner and if I Don’t Win, the Game was Rigged” Trump.

I’ve always been fairly apt at interpreting facial expressions and body language, but you don’t have to be any kind of expert to read this face.This photo was taken right after he discovered he won:

“…help…”

Look at him. Does that look like a victorious man? Had I not known the circumstances, I would’ve interpret that expression as meaning he just slipped a disc in his spine and simultaneously shit his pants right before climbing into the Octagon for a cage fight with a 280 pound undefeated champ. Don’t believe me? Okay, let’s look at the same pose, taken a week before the election:

 

“I am da greatest! Da mackdaddy president of brown people hate! You love me! And I. WILL WIN (unless I lose because, Crooked Hillary).

All I can say is that I sure as hell hope he doesn’t play poker…and if he does, I’d like to invite him to play a hand. Look at him. A half-witted dog with cataracts could see that he is scared shitless. And he damn well should be. He has gone out of his way to lead a tacky three-ringed life: the P.T. Barnum of nouveau riche flash and trash, christening every tasteless hotel, shady casinos, fraudulent “university” and big slabs of meat after himself–whatever it takes to keep the TRUMP neon sign constantly glowing. The money itself is incidental, merely a means to feed that insatiable monster ego. And now, he has accidentally traded all of that vulgar glory for the most demanding, least rewarding, non-stop job of staggering responsibility, in which he will have far less personal power than he’s ever had in his entire spoiled brat life.

Oops.

Here he is, the leading champion of birtherism, immediately after meeting with Obama (and oh my GOD, would I have loved to be privy to that conversation):

“You better check yourself, fool…I know where you live”.

Now I could interpret the significance of every single mannerism and pose they are taken–and there are plenty of sites online now who are doing that very thing–but you don’t have to be an expert in body language to read the power differential…that, and this obviously chastened (God, I would sell the rest of my soul to hear what Big O said to The Donald) Presidency-phobe suddenly declaring: “Uh, gee–turns out that Obamacare isn’t so bad after all…”.

In less than 24 hours, a life-long, self-entitled Alpha dog tucked his tail and broke his first campaign promise.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. For nearly a year, he inferred that African-Americans lived in hellish jungles and could only be saved by more law and order (republican for “shoot until they stop being so uppity”); referred to Mexicans as drug traffickers, gang members and rapists; made the outrageously ridiculous promise to build a mighty wall at the border to keep them out…and would make the Mexicans pay for it. Not only did he promise he would keep out all Muslims, he also proposed that Muslim-Americans–even those who were native born–should be forced to register, Nazi-style. His sexist piggery was so outrageous that it was almost kind of funny…in a “well, I guess I’m either going to laugh or go insane” kind of way.

It is my belief–and I don’t think I’m alone here–that all he ever wanted was to relieve that relentless, raging narcissistic jones by mainlining a daily fuckload of ATTENTION.

Yeah, really. At first, I would bristle at the latest fucked up thing he said, but think, “Well…that oughta do it; no way could he possibly recover from something so insanely offensive”. I mean, “Mexicans are rapists”?? Come on–not even Trump is that much of an imbecile. But instead of ending it all with a dignified, “fuck you if you can’t take a joke Trump Meat infomercial”, he kept lobbing out the insults. He made up ridiculous shit every…single…day. He lied outrageously and would lie that he lied an hour later. Don’t get me wrong–I think he enjoyed every minute of it, assuming that OF COURSE he would lose and he could live out his remaining years as an alt-right martyr, happily ranting against Crooked Hillary from his gold plated pulpit on TrumpTV, until…that’s it. I’m pretty sure he thinks that death is for looozers .

And the long-ignored angry white men and (appallingly, women…et tu, Brutusesses?) kept screaming for more. Violently. With unmistakable blood lust. Trump’s Traveling Cracker Coliseum continued onwards. 

I tried to tell them. I repeatedly tried to warn the local chapter of the Democratic Party that ignoring a very large segment of the population is like never inviting your poor relation to the family reunions–eventually, he’s going to show up drunk and pissed off–but…Hilitant hubris. Even the Bernie folks scoffed at me. I felt like fucking Cassandra–gifted with the ability to predict the future but  never believed; all I could do was watch helplessly as the democrats headed straight for the rocks. Thus, the inevitable Rise of the Rednecks. Trump was their collective FUCK YOU. 

I gotta be honest: if he wasn’t such a horrible ratbastard turd, I might actually feel sorry for him. His fate, at best, is one of a polezni duraki--useful idiot: one to be manipulated by republican Machiavellis into performing their dastardly bullshit…only to be tossed in the end to the bloodthirsty throngs.

But it may already be falling apart; he hasn’t even taken office and there are reports of a cabinet purge…when it hasn’t even been fucking filled yet. Apparently, Il Duce Dumbass is suffering from paranoia and feeling beset on all sides. He kind of reminds me of an embattled dictator at the end of end of days…except stupid and at the very beginning. .

What the hell have we done? Donald wants to know.

 

 

 

 

The Candy-Colored Clown Called Mr. President

(Dedicated to the venerable Mad Sweeney)

Insomnia struck again, so I gave up and made some coffee. I drank my coffee, pissed off at morning as usual, when a sudden realization hit me: Donald Trump will be our president.

This happens to me about a dozen times a day: I’ll be focused on some minor task and again, it will hit me like a vivid recovered memory of a repressed traumatic event–the sucker-punch revelation that Donald fucking Trump, the trashiest, dumbest, crassest, humorless-iest relentlessly repulsive, pathologically needy, sleazy, obvious joke of a man—who still can’t seem to get that he is the joke—will be our appointed leader.

We did this. On purpose.

Believe it or not, I am not given to dissociation, but I simply cannot accept the fact that we are actually allowing this pumpkin-colored twat to control anything beyond a TV remote. I can’t believe it, not even hypothetically. I feel like a kid in a modern reworking of a neo-fable titled, “The Donalds’s New Leadership: the voters say “President Trump”, but all I see is “the Donald”. I just can’t seem to reconcile both; the sheer cognitive dissonance causes my head to overheat and lock down; short-term memory mercifully fades to black.

Until I remember that the Donald will be The President, a man who lost his (inherited) $100 million fortune four times, who has failed in virtually every half-assed endeavor he set out to half-ass achieve…and of all of his half-assed dubious achievements, his only real claim to fame is to give reality TV a bad name. Well, now he gets to give all of us a bad name…okay, a worse name.

It’s surreal.  I feel as if I’m being gaslighted by every idiot who thinks that Donald Trump is some swap meet messiah. Have they listened to a word he says? He threatened to gut the First Amendment to make journalists “stop saying bad things” about him. He threatened Clinton on live TV that he personally would put her in jail. That he, all by himself, would “hire” new justices to SCOTUS so they could “change bad stuff” he didn’t like…which leads me to the horrifying conclusion that not only does he not respect the Constitution, he doesn’t even seem to be aware that there are three branches of government.

I can just hear the weary explanations of his revolving-door staff whispering, “No, Mr. President…you’re can’t prosecute somebody for being a meanie. And please stop telling Ruth Bader Ginsburg ‘you’re fired’.We just don’t do that here.”

This is basic shit. I know—I learned it in the fourth grade. It could be that he has come to regard himself as some sort of modern-day cracker Caesar, but…no. There’s not an ironic bone in that fleshy, mango-colored hide. He pretty much just…doesn’t know. And his supporters just don’t care…well, they probably don’t know, either.

Or maybe they can’t tell what the fuck he’s saying; his barely coherent oratory style consists of lies, xenophobia, violence, bullshit, misogyny, exaggerations, exquisite stupidity, unintentional self-parody, ME propaganda and then some stuff he just makes up on the spot, all barked out in a series of illogical sentence fragments.

And I suppose that’s it: they just hear the parts they like. Fuck democracy, these people don’t care if his boot is on their back…just as long as they get to put their boots on everybody else. I can’t think of any other reason they like him; Mr. Alt-right—and don’t kid yourself; he has no core belief system beyond the end of his undersized dick—regularly stiffs working class folks. Not rich people, not powerful people, but the bartenders, landscapers, drywall hangerers or virtually anybody else who doesn’t have the money to sue for compensation. I mean, I could see how they might gain some spiteful satisfaction at the idea of him ripping off his many, many undocumented workers, because they’re racist assholes. But why can’t that pipe fitter or hair dresser understand that not only would he not pay them, he wouldn’t let the likes of them unclog his toilet?

I don’t know how they work this out inside their head; it must take a really advanced form of denial for them not to see that he’s about as populist as a drug trafficker. Trump does nothing for nobody but Trump. Ever.

But even if he is incapable of finding Iraq on a cheat-sheet map, even if they don’t seem to mind him having a twice-flunked fourth grade concept of the branches of government, even if they only shrugged at his hot-mic self-incriminating admissions on the joys of serial sexual assault, or that he has repeatedly admitted that he gauges women solely on the basis of two circles and a triangle—I guess that can be rationalized by an especially spongy mind. If there is any genius to Donald Trump (SPOILER: there isn’t), it is that he has indoctrinated millions of people into thinking that they don’t need to think.

Still, even the most ardent Trumperite must feel moments of micro-contempt for a petulant man-toddler, who cries every time somebody hurts his itty-bitty feewings. He is incapable of ignoring criticism or laughing off even the slightest mockery. EVER. Never. Not once…not ever, from anybody…and sure as hell not you, you smirking bastard. Rubio’s only victory was fi doesn’t need to present his tawny, pudgy paws to prove to the world that he doesn’t have a little one…and isn’t self-aware enough to understand the implications of overcompensation.

Pause for a moment and let that sink in: our president-elect actually, 1) felt compelled to tell the world that the size of his pudgy fingers meant that he-does-too have a outie and not an innie, 2) thinks that it is of vital importance that he be perceived for his big-dickness and 3) believes that there is any real correlation between hand size and penis size.

The only thing it proves, of course, is that he is a deeply insecure idiot who must regularly bully and disparage others so they won’t see what a sniveling coward he is. And weak. Cher nailed it when she tweeted “How can Trump deal with Putin? He can’t even handle Megyn Kelly lol”. He is notoriously, dangerously thin-skinned, and quick to retaliate against those who utter the even the mildest criticism…and yet he is the one we will be sending to negotiate “the deal” with world powers capable of turning him into a cat toy.

I mean, has he even read the job description? He didn’t even bother to scan the notes in preparation for the first debate and he’s going to spend four years of working 18 hour days filled with a great deal of tedious but crucial details? And no goddamn glory. Even the best presidents are subjected to near-constant scorn, their every mannerism mined for satire…does he truly lack the insight that his own unintentional self-parody is a comedic mother lode? Comedians will never have to write jokes again.

I suppose that either he hasn’t thought that far ahead or maybe he really does think it will be different for him and that he could work, oh, for maybe three hours on the golf course, then rest in the newly redecorated white house specially designed to meet his specification of pink flamingos and Elvis plush…and even that would bore him after a week or so.

Which is too bad, since the people he has chosen for his cabinet are ignorant, moronic, immoral in the genuine sense of the word, violent, blatantly racist and in one case, FUCKING SCHIZOPHRENIC (by the way, has anybody done a welfare check on Ben Carson’s patients??). These aren’t consiglieres; they’re caporegimes…except maybe not as competent. More like mean-spirited Fredos. Never mind his Donatella Versace fashion sense of Oompa-loompa chic. He’s too cheap to pay for good tanner, refuses to part with the yellow ferret on his head, has the charisma of a meat grinder and is just straight up repugnant.

And he is also unforgivably, irretrievably, irredeemably stupid.

 A year ago he was a joke—which is really his only skill, being a fucking joke—and we have chosen this joke to be the leader of the (still) free world. And now every time I remember that this pathetic, tasteless, emotionally retarded little man afflicted with an insatiable”look at me, daddy! look at meee!!” need for attention as fathomless as a black hole, will be our leader…and my brain just doesn’t have the capacity. Sometimes, I can actually hear the crackling sound of synapses shorting out inside of head.

But this is no dream. We did this senseless, spiteful thing..and that makes us the biggest joke of all.

All hail, King Tangerine–America has pledged to faithfully, mindlessly follow your descent into Dark Ages, 2.0.

 

 

Dr. Condescension: Sexism and Medicine, Part I

Because dismissing a women’s health is the ultimate misogyny.

The strangest thing happened. After nearly two decades of dealing with my autoimmune asshole of a body, doctors suddenly decided that I was a hysterical moron. Up until that point, doctors took my health seriously, listened to me ,and took it for granted that I wasn’t neither neurotic nor an idiot…and I, in turn, took it for granted that they would believe me. Because I’m an adult…and I because I have no fucking reason to make this shit up.

And during that time, I kept hearing these horror stories from other women–primarily, middle-aged, middle-class white women–who went from doctor to doctor with mystery symptoms, and being dismissed as silly ninnies…or given a scrip for anti-depressants. I just shrugged it off. I didn’t have to worry, because the blood tests and, later, the unfakeable physical damage, provided incontrovertible proof that shit was real. In other words, it wasn’t my problem and sometimes I even secretly agreed with the doctors that maybe their symptoms were manifestations of their own stress or unhappiness. It makes me cringe to admit this, but it was far easier to believe that the dozen women or so I have known over the years were maybe just a tiny bit hypochondriacal than it was to believe that they were suffering from mysterious ailments that negligent doctors dismissed as “stress”.

Forgive me ladies, for I was blind.

It began with an ophthalmologist. My left eye decided that it hated me and everything I stood for. Consequently, Eyeball sole existence was to cause me searing pain. The fact that yet another body part had betrayed me wasn’t exactly a revelation; I am also required to see a neurologist, a gastroenterologist, a neuropsychologist, a rheumatologist and the occasional surgeon. I take it for granted that various factions of rebel innards will form nasty alliances; twenty years of sharing space with a progressive, degenerative, autoimmune disorder is going to take its toll. In other words, I’m a fucking veteran. So I know the drill: for any appointment, I go in, describe my symptoms to Dr. Specialist du jour, wait for him or her to prescribe prednisone (because it is always fucking prednisone), take my scrip and go. No more than 15-30 minutes, tops. The whole process is very neat, very methodical, friendly but no-nonsense.

Which is how it should go.

But this time, some asshole infant in a white coat didn’t even let me finish my concerns. In retrospect, this shouldn’t have surprised me, because I already dislike his face. He looks just like the rich, smug, repulsively handsome foil to the lovable slobs in all of those bad 80s movies. “Oh, that’s nothing to worry about; just a bit of inflammation. Probably a result of the autoimmune process.”

Just like this…except smarter and not as evil.

I was so stunned by the sheer obviousness of his “diagnosis” that all of those potential “No shit, you pompous ass” replies, stuck in my throat.

“Take these drops–they’re free samples,” he said (while also giving me a cursory, mildly contemptuous”your lot couldn’t possibly afford to buy your own” glance), “and if you’re still feeling a bit of irritation, call the receptionist and make another appointment”. Then he oozed out of the room, leaving a slime trail of hubris in his wake.

Apparently, he sent out a memo, because all of the other specialists I saw after treated me with the same good-humored, overly-patient civility that I have grown to despise…not only because it is insulting, but because I’m NOT BEING TREATED…even when there is concrete evidence of illness. Before, it was merely infuriating; now, the situation is becoming dire. Recently, after a seven fucking hour wait at the ER (God, I hate this Third World State refugee camp), where I was fucking writhing in the worst pain I’ve experienced since childbirth, in the fucking waiting room, no less…then finally into a damn room and into the requisite CT–which showed inflammation in two major organs and another vital tube of some sort–they sent me home with a prescription for a mild painkiller.

I told the resident toddler, Dr. Skippy, “Look, if you’re worried that I’m a junky, rest assured, I don’t need your drugs. I could get anything I wanted, including my own dilaudid if I wanted…and your dilaudid,incidentally, isn’t doing dick. It’s not going to help until you get the swelling down. Please, jesus god, I’m begging you: let me stay overnight and pump me full of a truckload of steroids. Do that and you’ll never see me again”. I mean, I fucking begged. If you asked anybody who knows me that I begged to be put in the hospital, they would drop everything and send a priest–nobody hates fucking hospitals more than I do. In fact, I am notorious for checking myself out and going home “against doctor’s advisement”.

In other words, I was fucking desperate.

But this didn’t register with Dr. Skippy. Instead, he launches into a deliberately slow explanation of why steroids are dangerous, all the while speaking in the exact tone you would address a particularly imbecilic child. For once, I cut the doctor off by saying, “You do realize that I’ve taken prednisone countless times, right?”

With this awkward, phony-ass sincere expression in his”See? I am establishing em-pa-thy with you” eyes–I swear to God, I had this vision of him practicing Professional Concern before a mirror–he leaned forward, and said in this hushed, checkmate voice: “All the more reason not to take more.”

And patted me on the shoulder.

I literally jerked away from him. Simultaneously, he recoiled and took one large step back, both indignant and wide-eyed, outraged and perplexed, as to why his white man, white coat privilege failed to grant him some sort of magical, anti-hypochondriac force field. He was gloriously, satisfyingly speechless. Which was a good thing, because I had shit to say.

“Listen to me–I don’t need you to tell me about the dangers of prednisone; I am on intimate terms with prednisone and I have lived through so many side effects I could write my own medical journal. You can not even begin to know the horrors–stop nodding, you don’t–and the utter misery it can cause. But…it…WORKS. And when things get dire–and things are goddamn dire, doctor–it is the only thing that works. It’s miracle poison and it’s damn well worth the side-effects if it will keep me from experience unbearable pain and, you know–DYING.”

By now, he had regained consciousness and was struggling to regain his smug-ass composure. He replied in haughty Assholese that he was far more qualified…blah blah, smug, smug, smug, blah blah, blah…than I could possibly be.”

I let him go on for a moment, but I just didn’t have the patience. Pain can turn even the most devoted puppy into a snarling, vicious animal…and I was fucking done with being cornered by taunting white coats who didn’t even pretend to respect me.

“Stop. No…stop. You listen to me. I don’t care how many goddamn letters you have trailing your name.I don’t care if you were first in your class at Smart Doctor school. I don’t care if you are the Mackdaddy of every expert in your field…you are not the expert of my body. So don’t you dare presume that you know it better than me.”

Drop mic. Chastened doctor. Newfound respect…and much needed treatment. Ha. Of course not.

He stormed out, practically throwing my prescriptions at me (which I left behind…take that hydrocodone and jam it straight up your ass, Skippy) and I limped out as quickly as possible before security taught me about real pain.

In other words, my little speech didn’t do shit. I’m still in the same pain, I’m growing more apprehensive about the possible outcomes…and I have no where to go to get help.

But that slapped-face shocked expression, though.

I am certain that–during my final moments, when my sorry life is passing before my eyes–I will get to see that face again. And when I do, I will die laughing.

I’m not done with this shit; Part II to follow shortly…FR

 

 

 

Media Whores and Other Propagandists

MB woke me up and told me about the three policemen who were killed in Baton Rouge…

My first thought was, “It’s happening. Fuck me, it’s happening.”

 I joined MB on the sofa, who was glued to the TV screen. I don’t watch TV, especially those “news” channels, so seeing all those jagged, violent images interspersed with blonde TV drones running their head non-stop was so jarring, that it took a moment before I could even process what they were saying.

“One of the suspects, who was heavily armed and dressed in black fatigues, is reportedly dead, but it is possible that two other suspects may have fled the scene. It has not yet been confirmed if the gunman had any affiliations with the Black Lives Matters protest or other anti-police groups”.

MB said, “Shit. Hope nobody’s wearing black.”

I replied, “Clothes or skin?”

Now if you are thinking–like I did–“Black fatigues? You mean ‘camouflage’? How the hell do black fatigues camouflage somebody?”, I did a quick search on Google for images of black fatigues. It took me a while, but sure enough, I found it: basically, it’s just a black shirt and pair of black shorts. That’s it? I was thinking more like head-to-toe badass Samurai, but these look more like something a weekend warrior Yuppie would wear during his bimonthly workout at the gym.

So how the hell did they get “fatigues”? For that matter, where did they get that shit about the “two other possible suspects?” And it has “not YET been confirmed ” that he was affiliated with Black Lives Matter PROTESTERS nor has any specific group claimed responsibility”.

I’m not making this shit up. And we’re talking MSNBC, not Fox.

But supposing I was a typical, mainstream American viewer…this is what I would hear: three of those cop-hating Black Lives Matter people were hiding right there with the rest of those racist radicals, just so they could kill some cops. The Good Guys killed one of them–thank God, because who knows how many other cops they would’ve killed–but two of those other scary, armed black man radicals (terrorists?) are still out there. So you’d best hope you don’t come across one of those people wearing black, because they’re just dying to kill whitey.

It really is that easy.

But if you aren’t hip to the techniques of propaganda, here are a few examples to help you break the code…but this time, let’s use a report of a cop killing a black civilian:

“A veteran  and/or decorated police officer has fatally shot a black suspect during a struggle and/or while was resisting arrest. The suspect (insert name here, though it will probably be reported as “black suspect” unless there are a shitload of witnesses), who had a criminal record, was heard by nearby witnesses (a bunch of black folks) to say_______ during the struggle (“Why are you arresting me” “I can’t breathe” “I have a concealed carry permit”, are only a few possible examples) and there is a possibility that the occurrence was caught on tape. Big Powerful Police Cop Apologists have commented that they are taking this matter seriously and will carefully investigate this claim …”  

…and so on, read by every one of those poker-faced pieces of fluff in mainstream media : NBC, CNN, and, greatest hypocrites of all: MSNBC. You know–the liberal media outlet (I have no idea what Fox aka Angry Cracker News reports, because I don’t waste valuable life hours listening to rage-stuttering morons).

I won’t lie–I’m scared. There is such an Us and Them divide in this country; I have this near-constant sense of foreboding that some catastrophic event will occur. People scoff at me and call me Chicken Little. Yesterday, MB tried to comfort me with this quote, “‘There won’t be a revolution until there is blood running in the streets'”

I looked at him and replied, “How much?”

Until then, I won’t go full-on tin foil hat about shadowy board members of the various media outlets, who hire puppet stooges to robotically convey messages that “it’s sort of okay to kill black people”…but I do believe that it is safe to say that the romantic trope of the Principled Intrepid Journalist, single-minded in his/her dedication to report the TRUTH, has long gone the way of the dodo.

 

 

 

 

Gender Traitor: Dani Mathers

Because I am willing to be the lightning rod for uncomfortable truths about the failings of modern feminism, here is the most uncomfortable truth of all: it is our fault that we have not achieved equality.

Think about it: we represent 51% of the population; the fact that we are termed a “minority” is a sad irony, because we are the fucking majority. Trust me–the only reason we have not achieved equality is because of this bizarre, lemming-like tendency we have to self-balkanize our own sex. Superior upper strength be damned; if we actually stopped projecting our own self-loathing onto other women, men could not stop us from achieving equality. Singleminded solidarity can move mountains; it can almost certainly change laws and social mores.

So why the hell are we attacking our sister Bitches? And for the most trivial, bullshit reasons, too…usually having to do with some sort of superficial shaming: slut-shaming, fat-shaming, mother-shaming, not-being-a-mother shaming. And we all do it, too, ripping each other apart like a bunch of bloodthirsty biddies rushing in to destroy the lame hen in this perpetual pecking party.

Think back for a moment–the last time you trashed another woman, was it because she lacked integrity? Did she behave in a way that caused another human actual harm? Was she being blatantly dishonest? Stealing? Did she make a bigoted comment, use her religion as a weapon, abuse her partner or child? Was she being hypocritical or unprincipled? Probably not. More than like, you made some offhand catty remark about a woman’s body, that tacky short skirt she does not need to be wearing, that her kids are brats, maybe referred to her as nasty, a ho, a THOT or, worst of all, lapse into using the term bitch as an insult?

Welcome to Vichy, sister Bitches–colluding with the enemy is a way of life.

No moral high ground here; in fact, I’ve been going through a sort of moral crisis about my own disloyalty and I’ve come to the conclusion that trashing my sister Bitches for trifling shit is the same as spreading enemy propaganda. And I’m done sabotaging my lady comrades.

Still, while none of us are without sin, there are those truly egregious cases of women who are so enthusiastically masochistic that they actually aid and abet those who long for the days of chattel, who seem driven to dick-lick the opinions of men, as if in the constant throes of an unrequited daddy hang-up (clue: destroying other women will not make your daddy love you…nor will it impress any other real man).

Please do not misunderstand me–I’m no troll like Camille Paglia (speaking of pandering dick-lickers…); I am a feminist. I am an ardent feminist. In fact, it is because I am a feminist that I can no longer tolerate women who are hellbound on attacking other women for such cruel, pointless reasons, while apparently oblivious to the fact that they take themselves down in the attempt.

And every time you undermine a woman in this way, you are committing the worst kind of treachery: you are a gender traitor.

Get this straight: every time you make some bullshit catty remark about another woman, when you fight a woman over a man, when you say some pandering shit like, “I just don’t like women; I get along better with men”, when you condemn a woman for her sexual expression, for her clothing preferences, for personal domestic decisions or any other reason which is neither important to whom they are as a person and/or none of your goddamn business, you are betraying every woman out there. It’s treason, pure and simple.

Henceforth, I have made it my personal mission to weed these Judas Iscariot assholes out, starting…now.

My first choice for gender traitor may seem trivial, but she is so indicative of the sort of unconscious, endemic self-loathing which keeps all of us down that I decided to go ahead and make a case out of Playboy model Dani Mathers. No…not because of that. I don’t give a shit what she does with her body; it’s her body to use as she sees fit. A woman’s body is her own; you don’t get to pick and choose what other women do with it just because you don’t approve. So no judgment over the fact that she poses nude for men. Objectification occurs when women don’t have control over their bodies. That is not her treachery.

Her treachery is that she judged another woman for her body and in the nastiest, cruelest, hopefully illegal way. From the locker of L.A. Fitness, she took a Snapchat photo of a nude woman taking a shower…ostensibly, because she was fat (relax: fat is not a judgment; it is a description…it is only when fat is considered an insult does it become a judgment) and, in Mather’s pinched laboring brain, that made her worthy of ridicule.

If you must, you can look up the photo that is blowing up the internet, but I wish you wouldn’t because it contributes to this woman’s victimization. I can’t imagine how traumatic it must be for your body to be exposed for fucking millions of people to see. Understand, she was in the women’s locker room, taking a shower. There is more than a reasonable expectation for privacy; that shit should be sacrosanct. So, instead of adding to this woman’s trauma, I have edited the photo to show only this giddy asshole’s mean girl yuck-chuckling face.

Behold, the yuck-chuckling, giddy little asshole, Dani Mathers.

If ever there was a woman in need of gang Bitch-slapping…Exhibit A.

Now here’s the good news: this self-loathing asshole is being fucking eviscerated; the bad news is that many of the people who are condemning her–not just the guys–are doing the same goddamn thing to her that she did to the lady in the shower: physically shaming her…like the comments from the screen shot below.

I know there will be those who see that as karma, irony, O. Henry style justice; they’re wrong. In her cruel, vacuous attempts to body shame another woman, she gave woman-hating trolls the excuse to attack her for her physical appearance, which accomplishes dick (pun unintended).

And while it is true that most of the negative comments I’ve read have been about her cruelty and how that sort of cruelty leads to a culture awash in crap self-images, eating disorders and being victimized for truly stupid reasons, she is also being slammed for having a large mouth (there were multiple Steven Tyler references), needing a nose job, obvious breast augmentation (note: again–women have a right to do whatever they want with their bodies, including cosmetic surgery…another crap reason to attack a woman) and virtually all the other below-the-lady belt insults are being needlessly lobbed…which she inadvertently encouraged as soon as she documented her own viciousness.

And these were the polite comments.

And that is why being a gender traitor isn’t just vile, it’s stupid: when you stoke the fires of misogyny, you invariably roast yourself in the process. You’re not “one of the guys”–at best, you are a mascot; at worst, you are a stooge. A sell-out.  An Auntie Thomasina. A contemptible, asshole apostate who should be shunned by every other glorious Bitch in womankind.

And I am on a personal crusade to rout your lot out.

 

Black Women’s Lives Matter, Too

Black Women’s Lives Matter, too…so why aren’t we hearing about them?

So why are they going unmentioned?

Heads up: if you’re still dumbassed privileged enough to be spouting that All lives matter shit, just go away. You’re in the wrong place. By now, after all that has happened, I just don’t have the patience anymore. All lives matter…yeah. And once cops start mowing down white people for trivial bullshit, then I’ll sign on for, Okay all lives matter, because apparently, cops just want to have fun killing everybody…but that’s not what is going on and you by god know it. So if you can’t even admit that to yourself, then you are basically saying, All Lives Matter…but some matter less and I’m okay with that. I just don’t have time to address every willfully ignorant dumbass out there. Go get Hooked on Phonics or find some Racist’s Cliff Notes if you still need that sort of education.

Hang on…okay. I think they’re gone now.

Continuing now under the assumption that the readers remaining truly do believe that black lives matter…and if so, I have no doubt that you are aware of at least a handful of names of some of the black lives which were snuffed by over-militarized cops who murdered for the most trivial reasons and fucking well got away with it. Names like Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Alton Sterling, 12-year old Tamir Rice, Philandro Castile–despite the inherent racism in the media (don’t even get me started on this new bullshit trend of interviewers asking family members of murdered men if they will “forgive” their executioners…new low, assholes)–have become a part of the public consciousness…and even then, they are but a fraction of black men whose lives damn well didn’t matter to the rogue cops who killed them.

But what about these names: Shelly Frey. Shereese Francis. Yvette Smith. Tanisha Anderson. Alesia Thomas, who was murdered by a despicable woman cop, Mary O’Callaghan,  who kicked Alesia in the groin seven fucking times…which makes her too low even for Gender Traitor Award. I’m not sure what she deserves, but I know that Alesia sure as hell didn’t deserve what O’Callaghan gave her.

Sure, the murders of some of these women have been protested…but those protests tend to be specific to their locale. For example, eleven bare-breasted women from the San Francisco Black Lives Matter protested the police-involved murders of Meagan Hockaday, Aiyana Jones, Rekia Boyd and others…not for salacious attention, but because they were the tradition of West Africa women who bear their chest to say “enough is enough”…and, let’s face the ugly truth: that may have been the only reason national media even bothered reporting about to these murdered civilian women who seem to disappear from the news as quickly as they are reported…if they are even reported at all.

In fact, that protest itself proves my point about the lack of attention that murdered black women are receiving: eleven members participated in the protest.

Why are the lives of these murdered black women being ignored?

Did some of these women have records? Sure, a few of them…not that it makes a shit. Know why? Because with only a few exceptions, they had been busted–and sometimes those charges had been dropped completely–for non-violent offenses…and were not in any way threatening the lives of these cops. For the three I found who were behaving aggressively, all three were mentally ill–and the cops knew ahead of time that they were mentally ill…but instead of approaching them in a calm, compassionate manner, they savaged them.

Most of these women were killed for the most trivial reasons, or because the cops themselves fucked up–by God, those no-knock warrants need to fucking stop, because they are almost always based on some snitch’s word–hardly the most reliable sources–and these badged thugs go in, guns blazing. In three of these cases, a 92 year old Kathryn Johnson was murdered, 7 year old Aiyana Stanley-Jones was murdered, and Tarika Williams and her 14-month old son, Sincere–whom Tarika was holding at the time–were both shot. Thankfully, Sincere survived…but Tarika did not.

Of all the aforementioned women, I did not find one case in which any of these women acted in a way which could possibly cause a cop to legitimately fear for their lives. Not…one.

So why did I have to fucking look up their names? Why aren’t they front page national news? Why aren’t their names as recognizable as Alton Sterling or Eric Garner? Their lives mattered. Black Lives Matter. ALL Black Lives Matter.

Or do they?