I sit in the evening
on the tailgate of my little Toyota
an hour after sunset
contemplating resistance
armed with my trusty air rifle
pockets full of bb’s and bird shot
and a hope
that if I have to shoot someone
I’ll at least hit them in the eye.
Who?
Hell, I don’t know.
Not who nor when, But damn!
Something’s happening here.
Any attempt to mandate common sense
will lead to civil resistance
in one form or another.
Maybe government agents are coming
sent on errands about which
I have no comprehension.
Worse,
maybe misinformed civil warriors
supporting a resistance
that takes no prisoners!
Folks like who learn what I think
What I speak even
when my voice trembles
will come one the run
and I, like Zhivago
will be drafted into
someone’s rebel army
joining not THE FIGHT
but THEIR VERSION OF THE FIGHT.
If I say no, some semi-armed
semi-intelligent mob
on my door step
with guns – and says –
“Give us all your assets!
We claim them
in the name of the people!
Down with the government!
Impeach them all
– legally or otherwise!”
Maybe my bb-gun will stop them
well, at least one or two of them,
whoever they are
or will be.
The swamp cleaners
building new Guantanamoes
on the mainland.
Rumored concentration camps
the government builds
to protect me
from THEM.
THEM are the one’s
who will follow us home if we leave.
Maga troops aren’t really thinking about THEM.
They’re thinking about me
and you
and anybody willing to speak up or hunker down
who dares them to take us out.
I wonder if
martial law is still in the legal maneuver stage
and resistance is still in the talk-about-it stage.
An owl hoots;
somewhere off to the left
I can hear crickets.
Out on the highway lights trickle by
from both directions
chasing their damn errands
contemplating nothing more than
the next curve and cruise control
and whatever is blaring
from the CD device of choice.
For all I know
some radical crack stealth team
listening to Faux News stampeders
or crack eavesdropping machine
is out there
watching, listening waiting for their next step.
Cause people like me who pop off
might be threats.
“Homeland?”
Did they originally call it that
a code word for neo-nazified agitators
who hearken back
to the original Fuhrer
and his ranting
about things German
as things “homeland?”
Course then I too am just a conspiracy nut;
paranoid
and headed for somebody’s
formal loony bin
cause I see enemies
where deaf and dumb pretend patriots
plot my well-being.
Cause I’m still a voter
who could vote for the other party.
Time was you could raise
a reporter’s eyebrows
with talk of plots and corruptions,
lies and liars,
fanatics and ideologues.
Not any more.
Only liars, fanatics and ideologues
approved by the chicken-hearted
afraid of the former liar-jn-chief.
4 years of a fool for a president,
Republican political sheep
too intimidated, too greedy
and too afraid to step out of line;
opposed by a pitiful party that has
even fewer elected members
with spines
made of something
other than tofu.
They don’t have “the votes,”
yet.
Not all the resistance lights are green
only a few.
Some are still frightfully red.
The ability to compromise
became an overrated and overstated virtue
following the last three elections.
Repuglicans knew it
… but Demo’s sure as hell
couldn’t see it.
Now there is no such thing
as checks and balances,
no such thing as three
separate
branches of government.
Just wait until some fool
wants to pass some kind of
“In God We Trust” amendment.
There’ll be no such thing
as separation of church and state.
Theocracy is armed and ready.
The fools might try to engage us
in an endless war
with every Middle Eastern Nation
except Israel,
… who sits there
laughing.
Because that’s what our fools want
… not to protect us,
but because they want the chaos.
It serves their purposes.
Like the ignorant bully
in the school yard,
the fools are engaged
in trying to intimidate
the rest of the playground
when all the other kids know the truth
and aren’t afraid.
The Euro will triumph
aided and abetted by the Yuan
and will replace the dollar
as the global standard
and the fools
can’t do anything about it
– or perhaps don’t give a damn.
So what’s coming down the pike?
I don’t think very many
are beyond classic denial
and won’t understand
at the very moment
when suddenly the 1st Amendment
is no more.
By mere pretext
we will all be forced
to shut the fuck up.
The young, the restless;
the pretend intellectual sophisticates
are in denial.
They believe few
of my old veteran worries.
These are the same folks
who honestly plan
for a future that began to fade
in earnest in November 2016
when the fake conservatives
posing as Republicans
got their wettest dream;
a built-in excuse to start
bullying and scheming
to get their way …
and their dollars.
“Yep,”
take away our way
of doing business
the old fashioned way.
Arthur Ruger © 2021
Curmudgeon at Work 
I have been on a “news fast” for several months now. I just got sick and tired of being upset all the time. News does filter in from time to time though, like this week’s attempt to keep up the unholy crusade against the moslems in the Middle East. I believe that we Baby Boomers have much for which to account. After all, in our adult lifetime, we have had all the information needed to make real change in the world. Instead, we consumed and philosophized and did the same old same old with different sounding words.
Keep up the good work. Ideas are the ultimate weapon against the true war, the one against ignorance and complacency.
I’ve tried to be on a consume and philosophize fast for a while now and find myself being emotionally dragged back into commentary. Thanks for your comment.
There is a saying that you must live in the world but not be of the world. Easier said than done. Not needing the world to agree with you or even make sense seems to make one seem rather smug. I feel one of the base problems can be summed up with the old news room adage “If it bleeds it leads.” This, of course, points directly to the appetite of the consuming public whose life is so unfulfilling that they seek the thrill of the tawdry and sensational happenings around them. The trouble with that addiction is that soon the event needs to be ratcheted up to a higher and more dramatic level to give them the same escape. Trump knew this, he sold an empty bill of goods but his followers didn’t care because of his skill as a carnival barker. Even the ex-CEO for CBS said of Trump “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS. And why was it good for CBS? It brought them an audience they did not have before. Democrats need to learn not to seek Republican buy-in on legislation. That horse left the barn with Gingrich and the Tea Party. Also, the media needs to report more honestly. That started going downhill when Reagan did away with the Truth in Broadcasting act. The best thing about Trump is he knocked the Kardashians out of the headlines. Now they’re back. As Pogo aptly said “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Knowing the problem is the first step to a solution
I enjoy your point of view.
Same to you. What comes in printed form from your thoughts commands my respect.