“Drink The Kool-Aid”
or
Jonestown Redux
A little refresher for all the Millennials out there who did not live through the horrific year of 1978 and most particularly as a resident of San Francisco, California, United State of America:
Bad Shit Happens when Good People Do Nothing
I was there. Anger, political rhetoric, and divisiveness were rampant. The “sensible” Republicans were fomenting a toxic brew of anti-gay, pro-white, anything-but-liberal agendas that culminated in the murders of the first openly gay public servant in America, Supervisor Harvey Milk, and the Democratic Mayor of San Francisco, George Moscone…….IN City Hall….IN their offices….BY a former fellow supervisor and cop, Dan White.
The outrage and sadness was palpable, the grief almost unbearable but the fictitious result of the subsequent trial, based on the so-called Twinkie Defense (the perpetrator ate too much junk food and therefore was only partially responsible for his actions) was unimaginable. The ensuing riots broke our collective hearts, again.
Almost in congress with these events and just up the street there arose a charismatic despotic, pseudo-religious (read: cult), leader named Jim Jones. He “led” his followers to abandon the country of their citizenship and de-camp to the jungles of Guyana where he further incited them into a frenzied mix of paranoia and panic that ultimately led to the deaths a U.S. Congressman and 909 of his followers, one third of whom were children, after they ingested cyanide-laced Kool-Aid while armed guards urged them on.
A plot to a current day big screen horror flick? Hardly. This shit happened. While we all watched….in agony.
All of this is a part of my personal historic record; it informs my ideals, my life’s direction, and my sense of what is correct, right, and good in the world as well as what it truly beyond description and truly evil.
I cannot help but feel that writ large, today, there is a huge, gullible, once again relevant population (44% if you believe any of the polls) that are swallowing a poisonous concoction of hateful rhetoric while the gatekeepers like KellyAnne Conway, and her ilk take orders and control their minions at the behest of Stephen K Bannon, Breitbart News, and a cabal of evil, intent on we really know not what.
They are putting forth as their foil the walking aneurism we all see as Donald J. Trump who, as Bill Maher said recently has “The impulse control of a grease fire”. And the whole house is about to go up in flames.
What prompts almost half the population of our nation to blindly follow the spewings of this fact-free, low-to-no-information candidate that has no plan, no self control, no conscience, and exists apparently only to promote himself and his limited intelligence? Are we that disaffected? Are we that badly off? Are we that gullible?
Or are we just simply that lazy? Too lazy to go digging for actual facts before someone starts digging our own graves. Pay attention people; there is mischief afoot and yes…it’s wearing evil on its not-so-stealthy feet of clay.
I know it’s hard to know who and what to actual put our faith in; to believe. Hillary is not perfect but Trump is not real. I get it. But facts are really the key.
Hillary, with all her faults and baggage has street cred for the job and world cred in the diplomacy department and that is the primary purpose of a president. The rest of congress is a particularly partisan bad joke at this point. They are self-servingly obeisant to only their party controlled positions and their party-generated personal profits.
Should the unthinkable happen and we end up with a President Trump (I quake in my soul as I write this) how long do think it would be before the investigations started into his businesses, his “deal” making, his illegalities, his assaults (he is already due in court on December 16th to answer for the rape of a 13yo old)? How long until impeachment proceedings begin and the Capital “R” Republicans flee the Trump Tower of Too Much Talk and coalesce behind the Oh SO Sensible-Seeming Mike Pence?
That is who we will really get after this massacre is over. The Uberly-Unctious Pence and his people who will happily go after gays, democrats, liberals, and any ideas, programs, or progress that has been made in the last eight or even eighty years. You think Medicare is bad now? Wait until it’s gone completely.
Pay attention people. The “steaks” have NEVER been more dire, we know…..Trump sold them to us once before and we choked on them then. We will suffocate on them now.