There it is. The magic phrase.
“It is believed that Bowers acted alone.”
Found it here, on Pittsburgh’s CBS Local website:
So, lone wolf narrative is it?
I call…
Bullshit.
BULLSHIT!
B U L L S H I T ! ! !
The word’s right here: Heavy.com’s quick take on the shooter.
See it? Right after the photo of the bastard.
Savor it. Roll it around in your mouth for a bit and really get the texture, the smell, the feel of it.
I wrote an all-too-brief post on Facebook intending to come back and make it a deeper article, but August was a distracted, personally ugly month and like so much of the rest of this year, somehow, I lost sight of the crazy…until today.
Here’s what I wrote then, as an intro to a Stonekettle Station post by Jim Wright on the subject.
Given the number of people I’ve blocked so far since November 2016, and the reasons why they are on the other side of my wall, I’m not hopeful for a solution, not when our theoretical president can happily meet with the founder of QAnon and promotes his daily diet of disinformation courtesy of Fox News.
Read all of it.
This is why I’ve largely stopped writing. I can’t say the stuff that needs to be said, because my reach is dwindling and people are too wrapped up in survival to pay attention. Even the smartest of my friends is still subject to burnout from all the bad news.
I get it. I do. I’m there, too.
But if we don’t find a way to band together and stop this shit, we’ll be dog paddling for the rest of our lives, just one exhausted nap from drowning.
Jim says: “An educated population trained from early age in critical thinking, whose worldview is based on fact, validated evidence, and science, is the single strongest defense – the only true defense — against this form of assault.
But, we don’t live in that world.”
Truer words never written.
Read all of it.
Stonekettle Station: Critical Path
I listened to these three pieces back at the beginning of August and I intended to come back to them, but mi vida loca interfered and with distractions including a kitchen renovation, filing for divorce, and changing jobs, the horror of what I heard just evaporated inside a haze of more immediate matters.
Until today.
What Is QAnon? The Conspiracy Theory Tiptoeing Into Trump World
QAnon: The Conspiracy Theorist Group That Appears At Trump Rallies
I fucking told you so. Over and over again, until people stopped listening. I said this was going to happen and people told me I was being hyperbolic. Since November 9, 2016, (up to and including today) I have 130 users blocked on Facebook over this shit. A further 20 or so have self-selected out of my territory, which is just fine with me.
On October 6, 2018, after Jim Wright’s FB post, I was moved to write the following:
If you fail to learn from history, you will repeat it. But you’re tired of hearing it, especially from me. You care about the personal stuff, but the politics? Nope.
You’ve never read my posts. Called me hyperbolic or worse. Blamed me for being white because that means I’m part of the problem. Called me worse for being a Democrat, an alarmist, a cynic.
Why are we still friends? In real life, I mean.
Because all politics is local and if you’re okay with burning down the house you’re NOT my friend and you’ve never understood why I do these things.
You don’t understand how I can reject so many people.
Read this. READ IT.
I started compiling The Cassie Times in October, 2012. Six years later, thousands of words and links to articles and Facebook unfriending and blocking later, we are here.
If you still have the temerity to tell me you are okay with what happened this week, then you shouldn’t have access to me or my life because you have learned nothing and your views are dangerous to me and my family and friends.
No, I’m not kidding.
Wise up. Apologize. Promise me you will never vote for another Independent or GOP candidate again. Then we can stay friends.
If you can’t do that, if you still have the guts to use the phrase “I think for myself” here or in person, then we don’t know each other, and yes, I absolutely will blame you or your friends for being responsible, for making me have to put these words on my wall.
I wouldn’t have to write these things if we weren’t here, now.
Peace, out.
On October 7, 2018 I started a countdown. After I’m done with this post I’ll go compile it and link back to it here. I’ve posted other stuff, but these were key articles. For now, know that today is essentially the ninth day.
A couple of days ago I broke it all down on FB:
Why the numbers? Why the countdown? Why not just a blog post with a bunch of links I’ve read to support my claims? Because I have evidence that I’m largely talking to myself and a tiny fraction of the people following me, and after 18 years of saying, louder and longer and with footnotes and links that this country is going to become a fascist nightmare we’re finally there and people still think they can vote their high ideals and make a difference.
The Green Party is a joke. Independents are spineless whiners who still haven’t made their cool million but hold out just enough hope that they’re convinced Democrats are gunning for their tiny incomes, so they’ll support the other side because someone told them they’d get a pony.
Eventually.
Maybe.
I’m tired. Spiritually. Physically. Emotionally. If you still think both sides are corrupt, that nothing else matters, if you can look into the faces of children or your friends or your parents and you just can’t imagine the US looking like a war zone, like Syria or Yemen or Honduras or Guatemala or anywhere but your safe little corner of the universe, and you can still somehow claim to be religious in any conceivable way, you’re not someone I want to know.
Yes, it’s hard to imagine. Sure, all the manicured lawns and the vast open spaces make it look like we have plenty of time, of room, of space to fix this shit, but how much longer will it be before they come for you because you’re not a member of the right church, the right party, the right skin tone or hairstyle or gender?
I’m counting down. Down to the end of everything you know and love. Not just the Election.
I believe if we get to Election Day, we won’t get past it. The GOP are holding their collective breaths waiting to see if the Democrats take control.
I see two possible outcomes. Either Democrats take back the House and Trump declares martial law before January, or the GOP keep their majorities by voter obstruction and dirty tricks that will never be investigated and the rounding up of all us dissidents will start.
There is no gray area in politics anymore. If you can still say that with a straight face and mean it, you really don’t understand the situation or you are way dumber than I assumed you were.
Wake up.
I’m voting Saturday. I am still a registered Democrat. Let them come for me. I will go out swinging.
But first I’m going to vote. Saturday. And if you want, I will come get you and drive you to the polls so you can vote, too.
Because that’s what matters now.
History is written by the winners.
Let’s win.
I saw it coming. I’ve seen it coming since 2012. I launched this blog because people were tired of hearing me say it on LiveJournal. On Facebook. They told me it couldn’t possible be this bad. That we survived worse.
Did we, though? As has been pointed out by people I respect, there were a lot of people who didn’t survive the last time. Who died on the Blacklist. Who starved to death when there were no jobs and there was no way to pay the rent. When people decided the color of their skin was too dark. When the god we prayed to looked different from theirs. That they didn’t fit into neat pink and blue boxes. That women belonged in the kitchen, feeding the menfolk and keeping their pretty little heads out of the important stuff.
Let’s take a trip back in history, to the earlier days of this blog, shall we?
There was almost a year’s air between this post:
and this:
And that was five years ago.
These posts are similar sides of the same coin. They received ridicule, when people read them at all.
Scorn.
People thought I was imagining things. Blowing shit out of proportion.
Shoe’s on the other foot now. This shit’s real. It’s going to keep getting worse. And while Cheeto Mussolini does the Victory Lap, stirring up hatred and anger, I predict a lot worse a lot faster than we can imagine.
I’ve tried to pretend that the world is still normal, and it’s exhausting. I want to make plans. HAVE made, in fact, based on a fantastic notion that a future where these things are still possible still exists.
Ironic, then, that the first play of the next theatre season is Fiddler on the Roof, innit?
Nine days.