Let me get this off my chest right now. This week, there on national television live from Cleveland, Ohio, we are about to experience the rolling thunder review of human rights disasters played out with speeches and ending with balloons. In short, the Republican National Convention. There we will find it all: homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, bigotry, vagina-fearing and gun-lust.
You can stop reading right here, or we can go on. Honestly, given global and domestic events since this Mars station direct, I would prefer to not even write about this.
In fact, given what is going on around the planet and our country right now I would be much happier writing out the recipe for stewed shoes. But I know I cannot ignore it. I completely understand if you would prefer not to watch.
Me? I will check in five minutes per day wearing a gas mask with my finger on the remote’s “mute” button in case it gets really crazy.
Even while reluctant, I feel compelled to check in. It’s like placing a dipstick into a muck-infested pool to test whether the slime has begun to dissipate. I want to see what that ghostly moaning underneath the cellar stairs is. I want to see if there is any semblance of heart remaining in the zombie GOP.
I say zombie, because it seems as though whatever life-consciousness that was in the Republican Party has been slowly drained out by the GOP’s wan acceptance of the extremist Tea Publicans that are the party’s base, and their candidates: Mr. Donald “Deport-the-Mexicans-and-Torture-Terrorist’s-Families” Trump, and his running mate, Mike “Christ-is-Lord-and-Bring-Your-Rapist’s-Baby-to-Term” Pence. They are now the party of the dead.
Whatever remained of sane conservatives have flown the coop, refused to run, were voted out by the Tea Party faction in their state, or went on to work as lobbyists on K Street in Washington. We won’t even see former Republican presidential candidates Senator John McCain or Mitt Romney. That breed of GOP elephant is an extinct species. What remains is the obstructionist wing of the party willing to crater the world to get their way.
Everything I’ve said so far is nothing I haven’t said before. Both Democratic and Republican conventions are week-long infomercials on steroids. What we’ll witness this week will be the presentation of policies by politicians based on the sullen ignorance we’ve witnessed with dismay over the last eight years. Starting today the themes covered will be under the banners of “Make America Safe Again”, “Make America First Again”, “Make America One Again”, and “Make America Work Again.”
I think a great many of us here are very over the message the Republican Party has to offer. So over it that I think even some Republicans are through with the party as it is. The one thing this week-long visit to the mind and heart of American darkness provides is that it is a way to wrap up any doubts we may have had about holding onto the past: the principles that the Republicans have been desperately trying to hold onto since Barack Obama took office.
But it’s 2016. Mars, Uranus and Eris are in motion and we need to get ready for the future. Changes are going to come. We need to be ready to meet them intelligently, compassionately. It’s time to glance back — albeit briefly — over our shoulders to the shit show on national TV this week and focus ourselves forward in response to it.
It’s as Eric always says: make art, music, sex and noise. Do it as much as you can now. Do it as a response to what you see and hear, and fight the lies that hold us down and back. We’ve got to keep scratching, pulling and pounding on the door this week that some so desperately want to keep closed. The future waits behind it. Let’s go there.
