Epithets and Exasperation: When “I Told You So” Isn’t Enough

“Fuck you, America.”

It’s all I could write this morning. Well, that and a reminder to a friend in Norway that I had told her years ago Americans are crazy. “Believe me now?”

As I plan where in my basement I am going to hide Muslims who are being hunted by the Secret State Police, I mutter apologies to every non-human on this planet. We deserve what happens to us. No other being should pay such steep prices for our ills.

I try to conjure Omega level mutant powers ("Class 5" for you X-Men movie fans). Not even an earthquake. I really don’t know what else to do. I write. I am a writer. In my activist past, I’ve made calls, protested in the streets, argued on behalf of the oppressed in court, and voted, of course. It’s not enough. What does my activist future look like? Probably still a lot of writing.

I speak English, so I should know better. I should know that violence wins. People from a small island across the Atlantic infiltrated the world to such extent that almost everywhere now their language is spoken. Maybe I should be giving credit instead to the Anglo-Saxons and thus Germany…and what of the Spanish? They did a pretty good job at imperialism and colonization, too.

And don’t forget how well violence has kept men in power over women. A majority of the population is oppressed by a minority, and not because that minority is smarter or cleverer.

Non-violence. I took a pledge at The King Center.

I pledge to honor Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and non-violent work by helping to make this world a better, more just place for all people. I will: Respect all people; Live a life of loving, not hating; Choose patience over anger, non-violence over force; Actively help to promote freedom, justice, and world peace (signed 04/27/2009).

The pledge hangs on my fridge. …. MLK is dead. Murdered. Violence won his life, too.

I pledged to uphold the Constitution as well, for me most importantly, the Preamble:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It’s what our laws are supposed to achieve, and if they don’t, they are unconstitutional. Few remember.

The Preamble is the most neglected part of our Constitution, a document based upon the Iroquois Confederacy’s form of governance, by the way. Where are the Iroquois now? Mostly dead. Violence wins.

We’ve been celebrating and elevating violence for a long time in this country, even before this despairing campaign for President in which the victor spewed hatred in almost every breath. Sadly, to show strength, the opposition boasted about killing a person. My friend who survived the collapse of the first tower on 9/11 was thrilled by Osama bin Laden’s execution, but our leaders should not ever glorify someone’s death, no matter how vile the life. Our current President won the Nobel Peace Prize while overseeing several armed conflicts around the world. Our President-elect hinted at the assassination of his rival. He called for a foreign government to hack her emails and has vowed to jail her. He will never be charged with Treason. Violence wins.

Violence’s cousin stupidity has won, too. To be blind to the implications of a situation or a behavior or a word, to believe that somehow there are not related consequences to actions, is to be unable to compute even simple calculations. The untoward manifestations – just as violence – know no party boundary. When our President ran the first time, he was elected because of his rhetoric, not his record. Berners also supported their candidate because of words. Our President-elect’s words were both elevated and ignored by his supporters, depending upon how much power they wanted them to wield. We value what we believe to be potential over experience, record, and truth. Depressing. Petula Dvorak, writing for The Washington Post calls it, “borderline treason” to make election decisions based on “who’s going to make you laugh, who you’d rather have a beer with, or who comes up with the zippiest one-liners,” but when power and compensation are inextricably linked to successfully entertaining the masses, there can be no other result.

A culture that is designed such that it’s not the people who provide food, clothing, shelter, sanitation, safety, and education who dominate but instead those who offer nothing of substance…really, what is it entertainers offer that justifies the power and influence they obtain, financial and otherwise? What is it that Kim Kardashian offers for the betterment of humanity that outweighs Jerel McCrary’s 15+ years of full time work against domestic violence and as an advocate for LGBT rights? Oh, you don’t know who Jerel McCrary is? Point made.

But we’re not supposed to call people stupid; it’s divisive. Instead, we are apparently supposed to view lack of critical thinking skills as a personality quirk. We’re nailing our coffin shut from the inside.

I have had three careers: entertainer, educator, and human and civil rights attorney. The first was valued to much greater extent by measure of both hourly wage and influence. When I began acting, I earned more from one commercial than in one year of practicing law – a few hours work to sell product compensated me more than 12 months of helping disabled veterans obtain benefits that fed them, clothed them, and frequently ended homelessness. I was offered a quarter of a million dollars for a bout in Vegas when women’s boxing was emerging on the scene. Never have I been offered such a purse for something more meaningful, e.g., a dazzling presentation about how employment discrimination in entertainment media is a scourge we need to defeat. Efforts to beguile the public are why the President-elect obtained disproportionately generous news coverage in the early days of his campaign and for every lunatic behavior that followed.

Our society's constructs elevate drugs and their dealers – humans, products, and their overseers who package and promote them. We are addicts. We are stupid. We are violent. We are America.

Fuck you, America. I have seen the movie “Idiocracy” many times. I really didn’t want to live in it.