Pick your battles, know who you’re up against, respond accordingly. I’ve never been in a “gang” but I have been in a crew that tried to keep our community and our peers safe. Our local ethnocentric gangs are Bosnians and Russians. They kinda do their own thing and mostly run gambling houses and sex trafficking, and while I don’t abide the latter, I also know enough to not push it. South Siders, our local HA sub-chapter, and the various white nationalists are a different story. We’ve fought those fuckers in alleys, kicked ass and had my ass kicked. We ran the Hammerskins out of town and I’ll always be proud of that fight. But, no ego, all these people are dangerous. I’ve had friends die over these battles. One had his head stomped into an unrecognizable goo by some South Siders over a drug deal, another was trafficked by bikers from the time she was 12, and another had a biker dad that used him to move product in his teens and ended up in prison because he was the fall guy. There’s some smart, terrible, morally bankrupt folks out there.

Username checks out.

“Kirk’d” and “Sherminating” also resulted in my bans. Quoting John Brown was my third and final.

9601 47

Jesus on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

God: [ignore call]

It’s pretty shitty over here because it’s a slow boil. It feels like Trump has cranked up the speed but we’ve been heading this way a while, and it’s been so normalized that every escalation isn’t a surprise, we as individuals who are disgusted by it are really powerless to do anything about it because our institutions are corrupt and between the cops, the courts, and our hateful neighbors, a one person stand against the injustice isn’t going to achieve anything. It like you pointed out with Russia, unless it starts breaking at a state to state level, there’s not much that can be done to break the federal power. We’re far too big, far too populous, far too resource rich, far too isolated, far too powerful and important to the current global economy to ignore, and the people in power know that so they just keep doing as they please.

I’m hopeful that our midterms this fall will be the breaking point, the final straw that removes all doubt for both foreign and domestic leaders to recognize America is cooked because they’re going to rig this election as a trial run to ensure they’ve got it sealed to rig the next presidential election. Boycotting our products and encouraging your leaders to withdraw from trade with us is working, the cost of living and the quality of life most of us working class folks enjoyed is skyrocketing and hurting us. But that’s what it takes. Make our privileges suffer and hopefully it’ll turn into enough discontent that eventually manifests as a revolt. I have a slight hope for us. For all our acceptance of populist tyranny our self-mythos of rugged individuality, self-determination, glorification of violence, and personal gun collections is bound to come to a climax at some point. That’s the difference between us and Russia, I really hope for our sake and the world’s sake we don’t end up like that.

I read what I thought was a pretty solid review on the current situation. European leaders seem to be holding off on hard lines because, like many Americans, they keep hoping the next election cycle will put a comfortable, familiar ally back in command of the US’ resources. Nobody wants to fight Russia in a full out war, their oligarchs are willing to bleed their nation dry through attrition and worst case they go scorched earth.

But I’m telling you as an American, whatever we were to Europe in the 20th century, whatever right side of history we were on, whatever armies we could muster or nuclear holocaust we could stave off because of mutually assured destruction; we are not that nation anymore and we are not an ally that any European should think will be anytime soon. We are either going to continue to collapse until we’re our own version of Russia, a cabal of oligarchs propping up a strongman and sowing misery internally and abroad that no one stands up to, or we’re going to rip ourselves apart again in a bloody spectacle that the rest of the world sits back and watches in horror. We ain’t voting our way out of this, no outside force is going to aid us, and we’re either going to abide our decline or die trying to stop it.

Ukraine is getting pummeled regardless, and it’s not going to stop until Russia either gets checked or turns on itself, and I don’t think the latter is going to happen. You guys need to be planning for what to do when Trumpism drops cosplay fascism and the US openly embraces what we all know it already is. China knows, why do you think they’re so quiet and patient while the western powers flex where they can and dilly-dallies on how they respond to each others disregard for established etiquette?

As an American, I know that every day someone around me is having their life ruined or ended by people I could have stopped. Not broadly, but one on one I have the capacity to end their intent to harm before they harm someone else. Big picture that’s not going to change much, I’d likely be ended or removed from society for my efforts and there’s no guarantee the harm to the person I tried to protect keeps them from harm by those same forces indefinitely. Ending state sanctioned brutality requires state level mobilization of forces willing to oppose that. And then, yeah, it’s a meat grinder of attrition, destruction, and innocent lives in the crossfire until, hopefully, the aggressor capitulates. Then whoever is left does their best to rebuild and learn from the lesson.

You live in a country that has long lived on the border of a ferociously aggressive neighbor and bled to maintain its independence. I live in one that was once the underdog, tore itself apart over the debate about human rights, and has gone on to be both anti-fascist and fascist af. Diplomacy and trying to limit the fallout of full scale war is great, but eventually there’s opponents who have the power, have the resources, and have the support that will only be stopped when enough people lace up their boots, accept their terms, and say “no”.

Remind me again how many random civilians have been killed in Ukraine by Russian missiles? How many Palestinian children have been shot in the face by the IDF? How many people in the US are either rounded up and disappeared or just gunned down by the cops daily? Your moral high ground and promises to “hold those responsible accountable” in some future trial that will lead to a sense of “justice” doesn’t mean shit to the people who are dead at the hands of aggressors who give no fucks about morality in the here and now. Every one of us that lets this go on daily because we follow the “rules” our enemy disregards is as steeped in the blood of their victims as they are. They don’t require justification for their actions, they just take advantage of our hesitation and debates over whether we should meet them with equal force.

My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they’ve set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I looked down there was no longer any ground beneath my feet. What is my sacrifice?

I’m a a terrible example of what humanity could be. I live what I have to in the reality of what “humanity” is right now while recognizing what we could be. We’re an exceptional byproduct of the pressure our environment pushed us to.

Neo-Nazis and Confederate “Lost Cause” advocates nowadays.

Bruh, the high ground isn’t enough

2020? Clearly Biden ruined RATM.

“I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see.”

Alpha energy.

Seriously though, jfc, please stop heaping your insecurities on your four-legged friend. They were wolves once, and this makes them contemplate where their ancestors went wrong teaming up with the rock-chucking apes.

From the creative mind that gave us Master Blaster, Lord Humungus, Rictus Erectus, Scabrous Scrotus, The People Eater, Toecutter, and of course, the profoundly inspired “Dog”.

Best I can give ya is

37

40

35

But they do in fact get shit done.

Born blind and deaf but still the baddest bitch in the playgroup!

Same, usually. Had I known Charlie’s farewell tour was going to end like a GWAR concert I would have gone and stood on the rail to enjoy the splash zone.