To Be or Not to Be

When I was about eleven years old, I was already tired of that hackneyed phrase. Fancy, old words: Why do people keep repeating that tired expression? I rejected it as a tired, old cliche: I did not know its depths. I did not even know the tragedy it came from. Now, for me, to be or not to be echoes down the years.

Being and nothingness; existence before essence; tragic sense of being. We know them all—even if not all of us picked up philosophy books. You are dumbfounded and befuddles by the things that come along in life; or, in the past, you read that notion in a book, and you were somewhat prepared. It works out about the same.

We are at a profound turning point in our lives and in our nation. I do not care about Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I care some for Joe Biden, profoundly wonderful career; did great things; stayed steady; wow. However, I care about the evil that is Donald Trump. A long time ago, when I was a chaplain intern at a mental hospital for three or four months, I read the biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was an intellectual and part of a group who resisted, strongly resisted, Adolf Hitler. He and his group were found out; he was imprisoned and executed. He sketched out a book of moral philosophy on old pieces of paper when he was a prisoner, before his execution.

Scholars in the field, Moral Theology, who have studied his writings, taken from those old pieces of paper, have said it really could have amounted to something if he had been able to develop it fully, using decent paper, decent writing tools, decent time, and, I would think, a decent diet. He was on the way to writing something great, but he was not quite able to flesh it out.

Before that, Adolf Hitler wrote two volumes of his hateful ideas; he titled them Mein Kampf. In English, it means something like My Struggle. He got it out there, and it sold big, and he bought a villa in the mountains with the royalties. The great moral philosopher had a complaint too; he had a struggle too. Who wins? Who loses? The guy with the biggest platform wins, I think, until the reckoning, which will wither everything in its path that is not strong, and true, and right: The Arc of the Moral Universe is Long, But it Bends Toward Justice.

Hitler shot his female companion with a pistol and then killed himself with it, in a concrete bunker beneath the streets of the German Capitol. Our conservative candidate for president is neither true nor right, but he is strong. I support Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, not because they are saviors of western civilization but because they are decent and true—the other candidate is not. Are we a great nation who cares about its people; are we to be, or are we not to be that shining star, that place of clarity in this messed up world? I choose to be that better place.

Farcical Drama

9/21/2024 by John Battle

Donald Trump is one person; he alone has created a powerful farcical drama around Haitian migrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. He has a team of advisors and a large number of lawyers, but he has orchestrated a monumental national drama around migrants eating pets—he came up with the idea, and carried it out. Voters are up in arms about poor immigrants eating pets.

Democrats: You need a farcical drama. Oh, you don’t want to do politics that way? That is not you? Okay, I get it,—but you don’t need a genuine farcical drama. He is chasing down cheap-ass rumors—and he is winning the political race with it. You don’t need cheap-ass rumors. You don’t want to do politics that way? Okay, I get it. From the preceding brief passage, we can say here are your tools: farcical drama, powerful farcical drama, people doing desperate things that are unethical or immoral or bad, orchestrated drama, voters up in arms, chasing down cheap-ass rumors, winning!

Facts are: He might be a serial rapist, he might end social security, he will be a dictator on day one. You have all the material you need. Chase down these powerful wrongs on his part, and make a prolonged, deeply wrenching (for voters) national, huge, drama out of them. Make the voters deeply horrified about his actual wrongs; do this over a period of weeks. Build the drama; make them see the joke that he is. Remember these things: prolonged—deeply wrenching—voters up in arms with his cheap-ass attempt at a comeback. Do you even understand the concept of an offensive strategy? What the hell are you waiting for? Up your game. Meet the challenge—you have a hell of a lot of material. Flood the airwaves with sensational coverage of the cheap-ass, often borderline evil, wrongdoings by your opponent. Win!

The Mistake of Normal Assessments

Donald Trump will return to his last big splash, January 6th, and unleash physical violence on a similar scale, and he will do it very soon. He must gain our attention to drive his crazy-ass ideas home, however ineptly or stupidly or wrongly. We keep making normal assessments of Donald Trump: He is behind now; Democrats are making headway; good—good moves there. THAT is not how it works. He will always perfectly and completely nullify those gains to his satisfaction—one way or another. Stop making normal assessments: That is not how it works. However, “to his satisfaction” is the weakness to exploit; he will satisfy some obsessive notion that is ultimately shortsighted; exploit exactly where he is shortsighted, and LOCK HIM UP!

8/13/2024

 

 

Second Most Powerful

 

Who is the second most powerful human being on earth?

Someday, at 3:28 on a Sunday morning, a staff member will wake the President of the United States and tell that President to decide the fate of the world in a matter of seconds—at most minutes. We have a pact—perhaps an unwritten one—the acronym is M.A.D. We have agreed that if Russia, for example, launched an all-out nuclear attack on our cities, we will surveille their nuclear weapons in the air (or space for that matter) and do exactly the same. This pact assures—pronounce these words very slowly and carefully: Mutually—Assured—Destruction. The film, a dark comedy about the cold war, titled, Dr. Strangelove, by Stanley Kubrick, touched on a scenario of this nature, with added paranoid elements. When this event happens, congress will not convene to declare war. The chain of command, when the matter is extraordinarily urgent, starts and ends with the President—this is the nuclear age! Nancy Pelosi, the second most powerful human on earth at that moment, a little less than four years ago, broke that chain of command. The exiting president, Donald Trump, was fussing with the idea of running a coup d’état, in order to derail the seating of the newly elected President. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi judged that he was too distracted, or flakey, or too well situated in his tanning booth, set up along the wall of his bedroom, to handle the job. That day, the chain of command did not hold. She contacted other nuclear powers and assured them that there would no first launches coming from us. In the United States, chain of command means one thing (given that we are now in the nuclear age): Do what the President says. When a person is too flakey to do the job, don’t vote for the stupid son of a bitch in the first place!

 

 

 Yeah-But

 

Donald Trump raped a woman. In your mind, when you hear him trash someone, you have this Yeah-But cross your mind: “Yeah-But you’re a rapist.” With that, there is no saving grace. The woman he raped in a department store changing room has won twice in court, civil matters, not criminal, as such. He is free in his mind. He is whimsical. He can say anything. He is quick as hell. However, by unquestionably defining him as a rapist, she has eliminated any chance he had of being elected president. You can align with him your great desire to be free and express yourself and say what you think and get away with it. You may think that he could carry all your hopes and dreams to fruition. “Yeah-But” he raped a woman: Yeah-But he doesn’t care. He is so free and easy: the way he handles himself. He’s charming. I say, “Yeah-But, that will take him down.” Yeah-But, Yeah-But, Yeah-But, he doesn’t fucking care. He is a rapist. That Yeah-But will put him on the scrapheap of history. When you go to college and take a few courses in psychology, okay, five or six or seven, you come away with a couple of important lessons. Identify psychopaths, and never be taken in by the charm of the psychopath. I have summarized all that for you; now you know. He is a rapist; there is no saving grace (charming, free and easy in his manner); he really, really doesn’t care! I do not experience his charm; I see a dangerous psychopath—always have. You should know this: Psychopaths are not psychotic (They are not insane.); they function in the normal range, with one important Yeah-But: They don’t FUCKING care!

 

 

War of Words

 

War of words, no violence. Lower the rhetoric. Keep it civil. War of words is a war of ideas. Bill Clinton said once that politics is a contact sport. He was right: the important, beautiful, wonderful, impactful clash of ideas. In your talk, do not suggest, imply, or hint at physical violence, because if you do, WE. WILL. FUCKING. BURY. YOU—rhetorically, rhetorically, rhetorically. We progressives have the rhetorical power, and we will fucking bury you, rhetorically, rhetorically, rhetorically!!! We will play very smart games, black-ops-level smart games, and we will win. We will bury you! You have been warned about the power of words. Keep your cheap-ass fucking revenge fantasies to yourself.

A better Brand

Donald Trump is where America goes to die. However, he has masterminded it quite well. When he spins his bullshit—have you noticed? — He never says “um.” He says it straight out and compels you to take it as truth. In the large assessment, however, it is still bullshit—even if a distinctly better brand.

 

Throwing Food

 

Regarding Donald Trump: This is my last word on this subject. Did he throw food in the White House or at receptions or other functions while President? Research the news, read the tell-all books written by disgruntled former staff members, read the rags. If you come to the firm conclusion that he thew food—for whatever reason that the people who might know tell us—send that motherfucker down the road: We don’t want him. Please, please, please. There are certain indicators of character: Understand them and apply them—or we are headed down a very bad road.

 

Democratic ticket for 2024 election

 

President

Kamala Harris

 

Vice President

Gavin Newsom

 

I support Joe Biden, but I am thinking as a Democrat here. We should be able to assert the progressive agenda for the next twelve years or so, following this plan. Gretchen Whitmer and Dana Nessel have done a beautiful job in Michigan, as Governor and Attorney General, in upholding progressive values, and they should be prominent in our thinking too. Think of me as the master strategist for the middle and left, the new Newt Gingrich—if you will: then again, please don’t; he has mumbled too much nonsense into too many microphones for too many years. I don’t do that, do I? This is how we make Democrats a nearly permanent majority. Let’s win big this time, leaving no room for the right to wimp around with any Stop-the-Steal bullshit, without their going to extremes and clearly making themselves out to be the Anti-American anarchists they truly are.

 

 

Donald Trump has Poor Judgment

Donald Trump has poor judgment: He forced sex on someone in a department store dressing room. Why the fuck would you vote for him and make him the most powerful person ever to walk the earth? He has poor judgment! Do you know what that means? Fun sex in risky places, MAYBE, but this man forced sex on a woman in a department store dressing room. Eww: Say it with me: “Eww.” He has poor judgment, and he lacks moral fiber. He might someday have a petty tit-for-tat with California’s Governor and nuke Sacramento, given the particular lay of that stick up his ass—at a given moment, on a given day—BECAUSE he has poor judgment. That might make for a fun read in a comic book; however, in real life, it is really dangerous and wrong. He is anti-woke, but voting for Donald Trump—that’s some kind of woke, isn’t it?—“I am tired of all these progressive bullshitters; I’ll vote for that mean guy; that’ll show ‘em!” That’s some kind of woke. Play with words all you want, but bounce his ass down the road: Do not let him anywhere near WORLD POWER! He will fuck you over just as soon as look at you. When he rose to a famous-for-being-famous celebrity in the eighties, I noticed an emptiness in his eyes, a sadistic no-where-ness that frightened me. Was I a scaredy-cat, or is there something to it? —I think there is something to it. I understand When Irish Eyes are Smiling. I am of Irish descent. A quick, engaging wit, with, bright eyes that take in the world with a beautiful sense of wonder—he had none of that, and he scared me. Have you ever heard him laugh with a sense of joy? Not sneer or chuckle, but laugh, with joy? I have not, and I think you have not either. A person who never laughs with a genuine sense of joy should not be trusted. He lives somewhere else, not in our shared humanity. He has engineered himself into being a national figure. He reached the pinnacle once—with the Presidency. Well done! But now, no more, enough, buh-bye.

 

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Something wicked this way comes: Donald Trump. He promises a bloodbath in the fall—is that the most inelegant way in the world of saying: Fat, old man has an embolism? Something wicked this way comes. 

 

 Morning in America—Not

Political wisdom used to say that too many negatives coming out of your mouth would cause you to lose an election. Political wisdom used to say that if the press doesn’t like you, they will take you down. Jimmy Carter was a bit if a whiner. Ronald Reagan got a genius ad guy to come up with a slogan: It’s morning in America. The ad guy himself voiced the slogan in Reagan campaign advertisements. His voice was a kind of gift: Everything he said sounded like a settled truth. It’s morning in America: That line runs through my head every time a conservative says something genuinely uniting and uplifting. George H. W. Bush said a lot of negative stuff: He served one term. I must say though that I rather liked him. Whining and bitching and moaning and making endless, mealymouthed pronouncements is a narrow, grassy path to the scrapheap of history; and if the press doesn’t like you, they will take you down.

I must say something positive now. Donald Trump has a hell of a set of lungs. His little comma-shaped nostrils easily take in all the air he needs. I had Tuberculosis when I was four; my lungs are compromised. I must keep my air passages open, even my nostrils, okay? I have wide open, nearly round nostrils. That’s really the way it should be. Look at actors in movies; you can line them up in one column or the other: I do not understand those in the comma-nostril column, though I suppose they need work just like the rest of us. Have I slipped a cog, or is this legitimate political discourse? I don’t know. I have slipped a cog. Take it for what it’s worth, eh?

 Here is another point though: Grow yourself a set of American values. Whoever you are, when you lose an election, do the fundamental things of sportsmanship: Congratulate your opponent; then, WALK—THE FUCK—AWAY—YOU—GOD—DAMN—FOOL! If you don’t like American values, find yourself another fucking country. You have upset a whole nation with your foolish antics. I must add here: I have a nice fiction book out there, titled Overone. It is at Amazon Books. I, John Battle, am the author. The hardcover is best, but it is also in eBook and paperback. I hope you buy it and enjoy it. Read my Forward in the free look-inside feature the publisher offers. Thanks

 

Well, I can’t stop now, also: Donald Trump, stop spewing your flaky bullshit from that little, squeaky voice in your throat—you sound like a psychopath. Open up your upper body, using your lungs and diaphragm; talk like a drill sergeant. Talk loud and clear.

 

Another matter: Have you ever been in a supermarket, and two college-age twerps are walking toward you, and one of them is saying “…fava beans and a nice Chianti.” That is not their shopping list; they think you are a homicidal psychopath. They are finishing up a sentence from the dialogue of the movie Silence of the Lambs: [I ate his liver with some] “fava beans and a nice Chianti.” Maybe they even started out—or ended; I can’t remember—by sucking air into their mouths through their lips three times in that startling way that the actor does: pha, pha, pha. Whoever you are, they think you are a homicidal psychopath. Maybe you have made too many veiled (or not) threats and inuendoes, and they have concluded that you are a homicidal maniac or that you are batshit crazy, or crazy as a loon, or at least half crazy. I am not a homicidal maniac; I am an offbeat literary figure, but I can see how some completely rational person might make fun of someone at the high end of politics in our country in a supermarket aisle, thinking that that someone sometimes sounds like a homicidal psychopath when they talk loose lipped. The veiled threats and inuendoes find their way out, and these words are motivational to some evil and misguided people among us. The blame will be yours, full on. 

 

The end

 

 

Same old Mumbo-Jumbo

How can we say that Donald Trump is losing it only because recently he has started to faze, sometimes failing to hold his thoughts together? Same fucking mumbo-jumbo as ever!

 

 

The Human Factor

 

When a raped ten-year-old girl is denied an abortion, there is something wrong with us as a nation. What is wrong is being ruled by the simple-minded: idealogues like Donald Trump, who miss the human factor in their planning and thinking, because they never quite were required to cozy up to the reality of everyday life—and this was exaggerated due to a very, very serious mental/personality deficiency called psychopathy. I did not like Bill Clinton that much, but he understood at least a little about the art of war: There is no greater victory than that which requires no battle. The Battle of Mogadishu was a fierce fight that lasted 15 hours, not the Goddamn decades-long wars started by George W Bush. Donald Trump can give lip-service to the art of war, but he does not understand it: There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent, Sun Tsu. The truth-tellers are com’n after ya, and you are not even close to ready, art-of-war be damned.

 

 

Cursing for real, Whoa!

If you put a curse on your opponents and you say, May They Rot in Hell, you may not know it, but you are playing for the wrong team—you may not know it, but you have left behind altogether the world of Christian love, and you are playing for the wrong team. If you say these things—if you invoke words like this—and you are not among the pure of heart, be very, very careful what you wish for!

 

 

Make Shit Up

Fat, old people, with combovers, who color their hair reddish blond are poisoning our blood.

Generate your own descriptors about anyone; be as specific as possible. Just make shit up!

 

They will Tell you Exactly How to Live your Life

Donald Trump is an average person of average intelligence, just like George W Bush, whom I consider the worst President in American history—Bush had zero skill at connecting with the people, and virtually all his decisions were wrong and bad for the nation (the perfectly unjustified war in Iraq is a prime example). Both have demonstrated by word and deed repeatedly that they are exactly the kind of average person who would be perfectly happy to tell you exactly how to live your life, right down to important life decisions and issues of self-worth and identity. If given the chance, Donald Trump will do exactly that. Here is my reply to that notion: No.

 

Stronger Language

All of the Trump criticism I have heard and read by his former associates and extended family members is weak and mealy-mouthed—it sounds like they’re afraid of him, or they still like him. Use stronger language. He is smart enough to systematically undermine our very way of life. Break convention; stop talking like a careful analyst—because he is walking all over that bullshit. Go the fuck after him with every breath you take. Counter, with equal force, every mean-spirited thing he says and does. We cannot let him win. We are better and smarter and cagier than he is. Create your most visceral critique—hit us in the gut with it. Give us brilliant rhetoric that will bring him to his knees—and make him squeal. He is not the anti-Christ: He is the anti-American that we should all fear, deeply and profoundly. MAKE—HIM—LOSE.

The end