Episode 1198
Public space, post-pandemic / Eugene McCann
Jul 7
If we really are serious about mitigating and adapting for climate change - because we're sick of this world, we're exhausted by this world, we want a different way of doing things, we want life to be better for people right now - it requires us to build up a tremendous political power, to rethink the subject of politics in climactic terms.
Writer Ajay Singh Chaudhary counters the idea that climate change will bring people in an unequal society together, and explains why the first step in saving ourselves from disaster is looking upwards at the capitalist elite steering the rest of us off a cliff.
Ajay wrote the article We’re Not in This Together for The Baffler.
Follow
Weekly Mailing List
New interviews every Monday
Posted by Alexander Jerri
Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.
Who put the pube in Reince Pubis? Who put the baa in Barr, the fly in Flynn, the rump in Trump? Who put the scales on Scalia? Who put the pomp in Pompeo?
Pompeo, Pompeo, Secretary of State, the pompous, pumped-up Pompeo. Pompeo distinguished himself at West Point, by graduating first in his class. That is, he distinguished himself by leaving. They were so excited about him leaving that they made him go first. He was not the cutest, nicest girl at school. Although, hefty comedian Jeff Garlin famously had a routine where he contrasted his physical form with the words “I’m a pretty little girl.” “I’m a big fat man,” he would say, and then, “I’m a pretty little girl.” And how the audience would howl in amusement.
Pompeo, pompous, pumped-up. From the French, pompier, fireman. The French find firemen funny. I don’t know why. I think there’s a rumor that all firemen are stupid. The Parisian fire department is a branch of the armed forces. Pompeo is a branch of the armed forces unto himself. Who put the pump in Pompeo, inserted it in his puckered purple portal and puffed him up to such pompous proportions? Probably some pompier.
Pompeo. Pompeo indeed. As noted above, he is not undistinguished. He’s an accomplished scholar and former athlete. Like Bob Barr, the Attorney General, Pompeo had an impeccable record, when viewed from afar. Both Barr and Pompeo are tools of Jesus the Conqueror, Jesus the Dictator, Jesus the One Who Graces the Mighty Chosen with the Divine Right of Kings. Y’know, the evil Jesus. The asshole Jesus. The Jesus who wants the US to inflict upon its foreign prisoners waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, temperature extremes, rape, threats to their families, electrocution, and of course, rectal feeding. Rectal feeding, it also turns out, is exactly the way they pump the pomp into Pompeo. One day Pompeo might pop, from all the pomp pumped into him.
Pompeo opposes abortion even in cases of rape. He opposes gay marriage, and any rights protecting gay and trans persons from discrimination. He, of course, opposes the closing of the prison at Guantanamo, because it’s such an idyllic paradise for rectal feedings. Just imagine him, sitting on the veranda overlooking the Bay, enjoying a rectal feeding as the sun sinks below the horizon.
When it came... read more