Zoe E. Whitten's Blog, page 76

About Troy Davis…

Please read this story, and consider this quoted tweet, which also appears at the top of the story:

"You can give a man the death penalty for killing a cop w/no evidence but give a cop 2 yrs for killing a man w/video footage of the murder."

Please, if you can, call Judge Penny at 912-652-7252. Or fax him at 912-652-7254. Ask nicely to grant clemency. I won't thrash at you on this because a LOT of people are already busting their asses on this. But so far, there doesn't seem to be enough to shake the faith of people who have only the flimsiest forms of evidence. There is too much doubt in this case, and this man should not be executed. So, again, no finger pointing. Just, if it's in your power to help, please try and call.

All Maid Up 7

First I'll copy pasta the highlights, so y'all have all the links without having to scroll down through my ranting and whining. The story thus far is: Ginger meets Kevin while working for his mother as a maid in episode one. In episode two Ginger learns of Kevin's bad reputation and decides to confront him. She also decides that for the time being, they will be just friends. In episode three, Kevin tries to make good on his promise to be a real friend. He does this by taking Ginger to the pool, hoping to prove he isn't ashamed to be seen with her. But this also marks Ginger's official coming out. She meets Kevin's sister Hannah, and one of Kevin's cheerleader friends, Tonya. Then in episode four, Ginger molests a teddy bear and breaks her arm. But not at the same time. In episode five, Ginger's best friends Aggie and Babs finally get wind of her coming out, and they demand a visit. (Or, Aggie demands a visit. Babs is almost always ambivalent.) In episode six, Ginger stumbled over something that Kevin had been hiding from her. When she didn't flip out, Kevin still panicked and went into ultra-apology mode.

Now in episode seven, Ginger is attending her first day of high school. It's a day so huge, it has to be split in half. And for the first half up to lunch Ginger, Aggie, and Babs are all learning that high school isn't the same as junior high. But while everyone is acting friendly, the nerds are waiting for the other shoe to drop…

Without further ado, here is All Maid Up 7.

 

On a side note, if I keep writing at this rate, I should finish the whole series before the end of September. So, fingers crossed that I don't get blocked before the end. =^) Oh, and When it's over, I'll check and see if folks are interested in me releasing an ebook version. At least one person on Twitter has said they'd like to have an ebook of the full story. They and one other reader have given high praise for the characters and dialogue, so I hope eventually to talk other readers into checking this out.

When the kids don't matter…

Today's first story looks at a case where black families were enticed into lead-poisoned homes so white people could study the effect of lead poisoning on their kids. The headline for the story says "racial bias" was found in the study. That is mighty white of the article writer, but racial bias would suggest that at least one white child was also poisoned. This is not the case, so the word the writer was looking for is racism, not racial bias.

But then, racially biased sounds nicer than racist, doesn't it? Then the project planners can claim that they weren't really racist, they were just color blind and not aware of their racial bias. "Huh, what do you know! I was SO color blind, I didn't notice that ALL the applicants were blacks, or that our promotions targeted blacks!" Uh-huh, but it's closer to the truth that some racist white motherfuckers decided that a few hundred lead-poisoned retarded black people was acceptable collateral damage in the name of science.

And, this is a lab study from the 1990s, approved by Johns Hopkins, not some eugenics study from the 50s. This happened in the heart of the "PC" era, with the approval of white people who did know better by that point. So there can be no "it was the times" defenses for this racism. The fact is, the people running the study consider blacks less human than white people, so it was okay to poison them. And as the article points out, there was NO PLAN to treat these kids or even inform them that the neural and mental disabilities they had were the result of lead poisoning.

If it came out that a bunch of white kids were intentionally poisoned for a study, the company would be out of business the next day. But because it's black children who suffered, the outrage is decidedly muted.

Is the real problem that you run out of compassion before the end of the day? Do you get empathy fatigue and just can't relate to other people? What is wrong with people that this story doesn't flash around the internet like a woman insulting a white card gamer? Why can't the poisoning of a few hundred black kids get the same reaction as a white dude who got insulted? (And who, I might add, handled his rejection in a far more classy way than all the asshole gamers, male and female, who decided to sling slut-shaming vulgarities in his defense.)

Every day, I can bring you proof of rising racism, sexism, bigotry, transphobia and homophobia. Every day, I could write up a flood of new posts with links showing you how far society is slipping. And every day, you can ignore me, because I'm just a mean angry tranny who keeps talking nonsense about civic duty and moral responsibility.

But what you won't do is post links to stories showing how stuff is getting better with your help. All the news of social progress that I've shown you lately came from minorities fighting for themselves and making gains using the law and a lot of money donated from friends to mount a legal attack. We do not have much backup outside our own communities, nor do we have any vocal support from the left. Most liberal whites these days would rather bitch about first world shit like NetFlix splitting in two or something equally as unimportant.

And I end up looking like a bitch by reminding whites on the left that they're losing and letting the right win on every civil rights issue by abstaining from the fight. But you know, I'd much rather look like a mean bitch than a lazy bitch.

All Maid Up 6

If you're not reading yet and just want the highlights, the story thus far is: Ginger meets Kevin while working for his mother as a maid in episode one. In episode two Ginger learns of Kevin's bad reputation and decides to confront him. She also decides that for the time being, they will be just friends. In episode three, Kevin tries to make good on his promise by taking Ginger to the pool to prove he isn't ashamed to be seen with her, but this also marks Ginger's official coming out. She meets Kevin's sister Hannah, and one of Kevin's cheerleader friends, Tonya. Then in episode four, Ginger molests a teddy bear and breaks her arm. But not at the same time. In episode five, Ginger's best friends Aggie and Babs finally get wind of her coming out, and they demand a visit. (Or, Aggie demands a visit. Babs is almost always ambivalent.)

And now here in episode six, Ginger stumbles over something that Kevin's been hiding from her. When she doesn't flip out, Kevin still panics and goes int ultra apology mode.

So, here is All Maid Up 6.

Okay, you're really going to hate this post…

You probably already know about this story of a mentally retarded McDonald's fry-cook who had a sizable part of his Superman collection stolen by some douchebag coworker. Well said douche got caught robbing someone else, and the property may possibly be recovered. (I say possibly because it wasn't mentioned in the story.)

This much, I'm in agreement with y'all that it's good news, and I'm pleased by the number of people who came out to show support to this one man. But–and I really feel like a shit for bringing this up–as I read the rest of the story about people who have volunteered to donate replacements and other gifts, I stated thinking, "This is a bit much."

Not the replacement items themselves. I like that too. But then there's other stuff that people are organizing, so that not only will this robbed guy get back everything taken, he's gonna get Superman him-fucking-self delivering more goodies.

Folks, as much as I'm proud of you for this, I can't help but point out, "This is a white man whose house was robbed." People are stopping short of a ticker tape parade, but for the love of God, he got robbed. Not raped, not physically assaulted, not verbally abused. On any given day, lots of people with mental illnesses are robbed, and the world doesn't go "awww" like this. I had my whole music collection stolen, and the most I could get from fellow music fans online was, "Sorry, man, that's rough." So why does this one guy deserve all of your undivided social energy? I'm not complaining that you noticed his plight. Good on you for that. I'm complaining about the amount of energy that's gone into making up for the robbery of one comic book fan. Christ, if you people showed this much energy for civil rights, we really would have conquered prejudice in a month or two. Okay, three or four in the more ignorant pockets of resistance, but still!

Did Superman fucking guilt trip you into doing the right thing? Maybe you looked at that first story of the robbery, and you saw the giant statue of Superman staring you down, going "What are you going to do about this?" So you asked, "What would Supes do?" And you know Supes. He's an awesome fucking guy. So he wouldn't just catch the robber. He'd find replacement comics and add a little something something to make the whole thing better.

And, you guys totally did that…for a comic book fan who got robbed. I'm proud of the energy you expended, but maybe you could take that superhero sense of justice and apply the same energy to victims of worse crimes? Or does this sort of reaction come only because the victim is retarded, and then everyone feels bad for them being taken advantage of? This too, I can understand, because it did stuck in my gut that the thief took advantage of his victim's mental handicap.

Or, in the worst case scenario, did you only do it because he was a comic book fan, and you other fans can only devote this kind of social justice for one of your own? That really would be the worst, because then it suggests that you'll never have the same level of empathy for people who suffer much worse crimes and who don't have this amazing level of support. In fact, lots of victims have no support at all.

People, there's a lot of other victims who get taken advantage of. Bravo, you've all done a swell job of making this one crime better for this one man. But now that you've expended all that energy, I hope you don't feel so self-satisfied with your goodness that you don't notice the other 99.999% of crimes still left unaddressed.

The world needs y'all to keep going with this good energy and helping others just because it's the right thing to do. It's what Supes would do. So how about you?

Oh, you're gonna hate this post…

I want to bring your attention to this story about a correlation between poverty and incidents of child abuse, in this case shaken babies.

This is going to hurt, but the findings show that people with less money have less humanity. They have lower empathy, and so when their baby is crying they don't try to sort out what's wrong. They shake the baby and say "Why won't you be quiet!"

This is just another facet of humanity's dark side, and sometimes, I almost feel bad for dragging this stuff out. But it's become clear that many of you don't see these stories, and don't understand how terrible you're becoming as a global society. So when I speak out without posting links, you think I'm just being paranoid or making shit up. And given that I'm a fiction writer, I can see why I need to provide links and let you see for yourself what I'm seeing.

Lots of you must think I'm a glass half-empty person. But I'm not. What I see is that there's a crack in the side of the glass, and I'm suggesting we fix the leak and refill the glass.

I'm crazy, so I get why it may be hard to take me seriously. But if you've clicked on every link in every post, I would hope that I'm presenting solid enough evidence that I'm not making this up, and I'm not trying to be mad for myself. And I'm not doing it just to say "You're all assholes!" I'm trying to convince y'all to stop acting cruel to each other. This is damned difficult because EVERYONE feels justified in doing it.

I always hated how politicians used the kids as a rally cry for every bad idea they had. It drove me nuts, and every utterance of "let's do it for the children" made me scream, "Oh, fuck the children!" But that was figurative fucking, not actual instructions. I didn't realize we could ever reach a point where I might have to agree with protecting kids from adults. But the people that kids need to be protected from aren't strangers with candy on the playground. The worst dangers are the angry unemployed parents at home. Which will make a whole lot of parents defensive. But if you don't hit or shake your kids, obviously, I'm not talking about you.

This lack of empathy and need to stay indignant is what money does to people. At times, I hate that I'm poor. But then I see the terrible things that people do after they've got money, and I see the things people do to hold onto it. And now, here's a story to show what happens to people with no hope of stumbling into wealth. I think, "If I had a kid, would I be abusive like that?" And what makes me ill is, I think only a moment later, "Yeah, probably."

Money may be the root of all evil, but it seems the lack of those roots somehow results in an evil comfortable with abusing children. And here, I don't have any calls to action or shouts that you should do something. Because I wouldn't even know how to begin teaching people empathy. There's no easy solutions like "just add or print more money." (That leads to worse inflation, actually.)

This time around, I'm just bringing this to your attention and I'm going all emo and wondering why there's so little humanity left in the human race these days.

Horrorscopes

Hairies: Werewolves, werebears, and wereweasels will all need to look over your shoulder, as the full moon can only mean one thing…sex-crazed sasquatches. Also good right about tonight? Chastity belts. Good luck, and we hope the stars are lying about your survival odds.

Minotaur: Dude, get out of the maze now! They're onto you! From where you're at, go left, left, right right, hay, weed, hay, weed, up, up, down, down, turn at the rosebush, and you're home free to rape and pillage. Oh, and the king who trapped you has a spare key for the kitchen door hidden for his whores. Go on and pay him back for his years of lousy uncooked meals in the form of sweating heroes.

Doppelgangers: You're fucking busted, man. Saturn and Mars being in alignment means chaos is about to be up in your grill if you don't skate tonight. Slit that motherfucker's throat on your way out, though. You're doing society a favor.

Vampires: Stakes are high tonight. That's right, a pack of vampire hunters, and man, these people know their shit. At least three or four of your crew are gonna get dusted, and you'll barely fang one hunter in revenge before his buddies try to do you in. You'll hang tough, but you're gonna bleed a lot before you get away. Better luck next time, mate.

Harpy: Bitch, please. That plan you're coming up with is so last century. Tie him down, paint acid designs all over his body, feast on his pain as the designs burn into his screaming flesh, and then tear his guts out for his "final meal." And that's how you cap a demigod 21st century atiste-style.

Maat: Lady, you are not going to believe who's going to come to you for judgment. We can't tell you…no, you traveled back in time and expressly forbid us from ruining the surprise. But…you'll love this. Heh.

The Scorpion King: Dude, you need to get better security. Another adventurer is about to roll through your crib, and shock of shocks, you misplaced the spear again. I told you after you had the doctor take it out "Go back and get it before a hero steals it." But you rolled your eyes and was all "Oh who's got time for a stupid oracle anyway?" Well guess what, you either need to run out of the pyramid tonight, or you're playing the pincushion, again. Bitch.

Elves: Poofs!

Lucifer: Big contract today, a new pop act. Yes, they suck, and you'll have to smile and pretend they just need a little help to make it on the charts. Kinda like O-Town, but with less personality. But they're going to pay off millions in record sales before breaking up due to allegations that they're sleeping with underage groupies. The allegations are true, but thanks to another contract with you (don't ask) the charges won't stick.

Sadako: So they're making another movie about you. Good news: they're getting a Japanese actress to play you in an American adaption. Bad news: they still won't admit you're a transsexual who psychically transmutated to a virus and then evolved into a hermaphrodite. Worse, the movie will claim you're a cancer on society. Erm…and actually…

Mermaids: Ladies, it's same shit, different day: sing pretty, kill sailors. Le sigh.

All Maid Up 5

The narrator mentioned in the first episode that Ginger has other friends, but readers didn't get to see them because Ginger was dealing with Kevin's past in episode two, and she got distracted by visits to the pool, as shown in episode three. And then she had to get over the trauma of molesting her teddy bear in episode four, only to suffer an unfortunate but very comical injury.

But at long last, today introduces Ginger's two best friends, Aggie and Babs. Aggie is a half Hispanic, half white daughter of a theater engineer and a family lawyer, while Babs is the son of computer nerds. (Gives you a hint at what his full name is.) Babs is deaf, but not mute, though that won't become apparent until later chapters. So those keeping score at home can marvel at the diversity of this cast, and I haven't even gotten out of Summer vacation yet.

Diversity. I can has it.

Ahem, so here is All Maid Up 5.

Rambly people are the rambliest people I know…

My Sinday (not a typo) ramble starts with a DM last night from an unnamed writer who thanked me for all the RTs I give them, and then apologized for not tweeting any of my links in return. Part of me was tempted to say sarcastically, "Yeah, well you SHOULD be ashamed." But sarcasm really does not transfer well in tweets. (Speaking from experience.) So recognizing that sarcasm was out, I just said, "Nobody reciprocates RTs but it doesn't matter. I'm just doing my part to promote other creators."

And, this is true. I'm not on Twitter to make mega sales for myself. If I was, I might have to post more book links than doing a little spam run every two or three days. I don't RT to get RTs. That has not worked, but I can help to promote others, and I can lend my voice and my bandwidth to other artists or causes. In addition to this vocal online activism, I also lend support behind the scenes with donations and private messages of support and comfort. I'm a full-service activist and advocate.

But the other day, Zoe Winters said to me that what I was doing could not possibly lead to sales success, nor could I get any male friends with the way I talk about men. First, Zoe has apparently ignored the fact that I retired, so my sales success as a hobby writer is fucking fantastic. I just blow chunks as a mainstream writer, is all. Also, now that I think about it, I'm probably an indie failure by small press standards too. Eh. Not my fault for being weird, and not your fault for not reading weird shit.

But the thing that really gets on my tits is, this is someone who by her own admission has never dealt with the violent side of men telling a victim of years of abuse that she needs to buddy up to the same people who were attacking her since childhood. Then she said I love to hold onto my victimhood, which is why I champion other causes to stay angry. She also suggested that it's this and not my mental illness which makes me unstable. I'm just mad all the time and need to find peace within myself so I can take the right tone in future communications.

And from this, I learned that Zoe Winters is so disengaged from reality that she might as well live in one of her fantasy worlds. Zoe Winters has repeatedly said in her posts that she didn't have time for other writers, because she can only think of herself. I was okay with that, but now I see that she doesn't have time for other women, or for any civil rights. She, like many people with money to spare, can't be bothered to share any of her time, resources, or energy to anything but herself and her kin.

You know what I have to say about that? "Yay, finally a way to prove that we are in fact two separate people!" You see, a lot of the stories I bring to you on my blog or Twitter stream don't have anything to do with me or my victimhood. I share these stories because I want you to see how bad things are getting. And every time, I'm going to ask, "Can't you do something to help?" When I was asking for help for my books, or I was asking for donations for my health problems, I got attacked as expecting too much from the public.

But the public is a bunch of lazy assholes, and someone needs to be reminding them of this inescapable fact. And people like that other Zoe say, "Hey, Zoe, you'll never make friends like this!" You're absolutely right. Because I don't want to be your friend. In this day and age, "friend" does not mean "someone who watches out for you." It means "I know you from somewhere." Friends no longer allow each other to have differences of opinion without stomping away for good, like spoiled fucking children who can't have their way. Friends no longer last through thick and thin. They last only so long as the weather is fair.

I don't want to be your friend if that's all you think friendship is.

I'm always depressed by how many of you get mad at me for pointing out the truth. You say that you might have accepted it if I'd just found a nicer way to say it, but that's a lie. History has shown through men like Martin Luther King that peaceful men can still be murdered for speaking the truth in softer tones. People listened to him, but they listened Malcolm X too, and he was "just" an angry black man. And he got killed for speaking the truth in brutally honest terms. You know the only blacks who don't get killed for this? Comedians, because then there's the unspoken contract of comedy: "We won't take anything you say seriously." So Chris Rock and Richard Pryor can spit truth to rooms full of white people, and those people still won't do anything. Which is why nobody ever tried to assassinate Chris Rock or Richard Pryor.

The ironic thing is, in this day and age, you don't even have to leave your house to help out minorities. You can donate to causes, get online and order the creative products of these people and try to absorb part of their culture without having to ask a lot of awkward questions. You can log onto blogs and educate yourself on the effect of oppression by reading the perspectives of minorities without some kind of knee-jerk reaction that you're the "real victim" here. You're not an oppressed victim when I spit truth at you. You're the incensed oppressor looking for a way to avoid losing your privilege. So you write to me, and you say, "Don't blame me, bitch! I'm all about supporting minorities. You don't know who my friends are, and we're all good people who aren't like that."

So, insult on me, then defense first of oneself; I've got ___ friends, followed by CYA for their friends. That's four flavors of dismissal and denial, but not one grain of truth. And, if these people are "all" good, then clearly, I must be exaggerating with all these stories about racism and sexism, and whatnot. So you don't have to do anything against prejudice because it's already going away and I just won't admit it.

One of us is lying. You know who it is, because I've been posting links with every rant. You've never posted a damn thing as proof of society's goodness to counter my facts. Which is why you yell at me to shut up. Because you can't make a defense without admitting what rotten rat bastards you've let yourselves become by remaining ignorant.

If you said to a black man, "You don't know how many black friends I have," that proves you are still an oppressor of blacks, even if you consider yourself color blind. And, by the way, calling yourselves color blind means never looking for black authors, artists, or musicians. Being color blind means you ignore POC. That doesn't make you a better person. It makes you ignorant of the problems these people face. That you won't educate yourself, AND you won't listen to actual minorities about prejudice proves that you're not good, just lazy and uninformed.

You people bitch at me about this, but I'm backed up in my opinion by a pretty famous white guy: Mark Twain. Mr. Twain had a lot to say about good people who remained willfully color blind. He talked about people who were "tolerant" of blacks, meaning they were comfortable with other people owning slaves, but wouldn't own any themselves. And people in that time would look at angry or upset blacks and say, "Hey, negro, don't lay those crimes at my feet. I don't own any slaves, so it's not my problem."

The modern version of this is, "I'm not really prejudiced myself, nor do I know any prejudiced people. So I do not have any responsibility to help any minority."

Actually, if you claim to be willing to defend my right to hold an opinion, then yes, you should be actively defending my rights. Instead the only person you will speak to on this is me, and that's to tell me off. Which is sad, because what I'm saying to you will not bruise you. It may sting your ego, but I'm not lying or being insulting when I call you willfully ignorant. I'm telling you the truth because you all need to change for the better.

And now we get to the point where, usually in a Twitter rant, someone will have invariably asked, "Well what do you want from us anyway?"

Emails. You see a case of police brutality or racial profiling in your town, you email the mayor and get those cops fired. Pronto. And you demand that the rest of the cops be aware that prejudice of any form is not acceptable from enforcers of the law. You see some lawmakers proposing an anti-gay law, write to the guys sponsoring it and tell them what a bad idea it is. If you see reports of abuse in a local prison, write to your governor, AND encourage your other friends to use their emailed opinions to stop this injustice too.

That's level one ally support, the willingness to speak for us in times of need, to the right people instead of telling the oppressed minorities how much you care. WE don't need to know you care about civil rights. They, your government, need to hear this from you. No, really. Like, in the worst way. Democrats run from queer civil rights precisely because they never hear any messages of support from their constituents. What they hear are the cries of "conservative Democrats" who are outraged that we would waste resources on sinners. The GOP never hears from the Republican voters with gay friends that it's time to change the party platform to support civil rights. Neither side is hearing from the people who claim to care.

And, this is because they don't care. They can claim to care, but when they are unwilling to lend any real support besides words, those words begin to ring hollow to every minority ally.

If you already do write emails to your elected officials for every cause, great, but I want to suggest an even higher level of support. You say you've got queer friends? Well some of your queer friends have problems with facets of everyday life that you take for granted. Like reporting a crime to the police, or going to the emergency room for treatment. It has frequently happened that a religious doctor refused to work on a transsexual patient in critical condition, letting them die because it's against the doctor's moral beliefs to fulfill the Hippocratic oath.

These people could really used a privileged person coming along and acting as a witness. This is because people are less likely to be openly discriminating when they know a reliable witness is there to see their prejudice on display. All too often, when going to the police to report a crime, cops blow off the victim. And, that's the best case scenario for us. Worst case is, they book us and put us in a cage for a few hours or days of further abuse.

This is a high level of commitment at level two. No, I don't expect this, but it sure would be nice if some of you privileged people would at least take the time to get Google news updates for the keywords "racism," "sexism," "rape," "transsexual," and "transgender," Read those streams for one month, read all the hateful comments that people say after every article. Then ask yourself, "Why don't these hateful attitudes change?" The answer is, because you won't lend your support in any meaningful way.

What do I want from you? Emails and self-education. Volunteer escorts would be nice, but I'm not trying to push my luck. Oh, but by the by, black women who need to go to the hospital or to report crimes in poor urban areas could also use escorts. Not that you need to, but I just wanted to point out this is not a queers-only thing. Lots of people could use a white witness to help stamp out the most overt forms of prejudice.

You may think it's unfair of me to ask these things. You may feel it's rude of me to say you're fucking lazy. And you're free to hold onto your indignation. But at the end of the day, you're no better than the white people who let slavery go on because it wasn't their problem. Yes, it was, and yes, modern prejudice is everybody's problem. Yes, even people who aren't prejudiced.

And again, let's examine our positions in life. I'm the transsexual, a victim of years of abuse who is telling you about the daily oppression my people and other people face every day, and you're the sheltered person becoming indignant that I should demand something more from you than a few hollow words of support. So if you're continuing to be an ignorant douchebag even after reading about oppression and knowing how bad it is for all minorities, then yes, I am entitled to remain pissed off at you for as long as I like. No, I don't have to be your friend, and no, I don't give a fuck if you buy my books.

And yes, even if you claim to do nothing wrong, you are still doing something wrong by doing nothing. Mark Twain will totally back me up that a lie told by a politician is never so dangerous as the apathetic silence of the majority of privileged people in the face of that politician's prejudice. And he would agree with me that the worst oppressors are the people who let that prejudice happen because "it's not their fault."

Mark Twain is on my side, people. Who you got to back you up for your right to remain silent?

Texas povery figures…

So, you think Perry is your man cause he says he's doing a great job running Texas? Well here's an article for a little reality check. And here's the money quote:

The policy paper, published by the Austin-based non-partisan Center for Public Policy Priorities, said poverty in Texas was currently higher than the rest of the US and was growing faster.

The paper said poverty rates in Texas had jumped from 17.3% in 2009 to 18.4% in 2010, and compared them to figures for the US of 14.3% in 2009, rising to 15.1% in 2010. That suggests there are currently around 4.6m Texans living in poverty, which is currently defined as an income of $22,113 a year for a family of four.

This is the kind of "great job" that got Perry reelected in Texas, because Texas men LOVE to be fucked in the ass, but only if it's by a white male politician. They have standards, yo.

So, if your goal is to see the erasure of the middle class and an impoverished country with lower education standards and a higher prison population, then please, by all means, vote for Perry. And when you bitch that he's killing your country, I will happily say over and over, "You have the government you deserve."

And hey, this post is so short, I'll even tell you another story, one that takes place in Hollywood, Florida. They held a voter referendum to strip police and firefighters of their pension. You people spout all the time "Police and firefighters are the real heroes," so you might assume people came out to defend their civil servants.

That's because you're deluded and lying to yourself. Just 13% of the registered voters turned out to vote, and they voted against the police and firefighters. Hubby read that and said, "The cops and firemen should just leave. Those people can all die in fires."

And, for their complete and utter lack of empathy for the people who work FOR THEM, the voters of Hollywood most certainly deserve to die in a fire. And you don't get to make any "Hey, we're good people defenses." You're not good. You're fucking lazy and apathetic. Because of the disparity between your actions and what you say you believe, I'm getting to the point where even if someone tells me "hey, I'm a good person," I'm more inclined to believe they're lying to make themselves look and feel better about themselves.

We're about to see another election in the US where the left will assume they've got a slam dunk victory against the GOP, and will thus stay home. Then they will let the more dedicated haters win in the GOP by default, because the left is too lazy to care about anything that doesn't affect their wallets. Which is ironic, because their wallets are slimmer now as a result of their past inaction. You'd think this would be a motivator to get them out in force. But apathy has rendered the left into a mountain of entitled whiners who still won't accept that some of these disasters are their fault for not speaking up.

And when Perry or someone just as bad defeats Obama, and you people are whining "How did this happen?" I'll be the bitch to remind you, "You let it happen, and you deserve what you get."

First they came for me. Then they came for the civil servants. Now it's your turn, and I can't generate any give a shit for you.

Now, ask me why I'm bitter all the time.