somewhat frivolous & somewhat not

[storyrainthejournal]

First the frivolous: One of my favorite things on Supernatural is the running visual trope of the motel rooms the brothers stay in all across the country. Here's a sampling from season three. In seven seasons there have been so many amazing motel sets on that show. As illustrations of the liminal space these monster hunters inhabit, they are brilliant. 
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In case you read my blog but otherwise have nothing to do with SF or nerd culture, you should read John Scalzi's Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is, and then maybe Meghan McCarron's follow-up commentary, Game of Privelege. What I appreciate about what Meghan says is that it takes the issue to a wider application, that is, people like Mitt Romney, who have no earthly clue in the world that being rich doesn't make you more virtuous or deserving than people who work twice as hard as you for far less reward. The paragraph in Meghan's little essay that really says it for me:

All too often, Straight White Men do not see that their setting is easier, and they assume that those struggling against bigger challenges are simply poorer players. At first this is innocent - the Straight White Men are focused on surviving the game themselves, after all. They didn’t design it. But the “easy” setting’s invisibility breeds arrogance, not the humility necessary to acknowledge that you’re “winning” the game because a. the game is easier for you and b. the game itself is designed to benefit you most. The fact that privilege robs us of empathy and humility is nearly as poisonous as the advantages it brings, because humble, empathetic people would not gleefully skip through difficulty while leaving others to suffer.

And I'm just going to say it again: trickle down economics DOES NOT WORK. Giving rich people and corporations a pass and the keys to the kingdom has not and will not help anyone but the rich people and corporations themselves. As far they're concerned, the rest of us can go hang.

The only 'personal freedom' it's about for them, is the personal freedom to (both metaphorically and literally) rape, pillage, detroy, and take every good that they can for themselves, the rest of us be screwed. These are not the people I want running this country or any other. They are not people who deserve or earn my respect. They put nothing good into the world and are, manifestly, only set on their own gain. That is not okay or good or admirable.
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(I considered, a little while ago, not putting anything political on any of my social media outlets anymore, but I feel injustice too strongly and I just can't shut up about it.)