I somehow missed one of the most outstanding cris de coeur I’ve ever seen when it first appeared. Thanks to NC Renegade, I can make up for that most regrettable lapse now. I’m going to excerpt quite extravagantly from it, because…well, because I have to, that’s why. Read on, you’ll understand.

My 1940s born Dad raised me to be patriotic and proud, to love the war bird airplanes of his era as much as he does, and to respect our flag and our country as a sacred thing. I grew up thinking that being an American was the greatest gift a person could have. I grew up thinking that our country was as strong, and honest and true as my Dad. I grew up thinking I was free.

As an adult, I have witnessed the world I grew up in fall to ruin. I have watched as our currency and our economy have been shamelessly corrupted beyond redemption. Since we’ve been married, my husband and I TWICE had our meager investment savings gutted by the market that we were told to invest in, now that pensions no longer exist and we working stiffs are on our own. We will be working until we die, because the Social Security we’ve been forced to pay into has also been robbed from under us.

I have watched as our elected officials enter Congress as ordinary folks and leaves as multi millionaires. I have watched my blue collar husband get up at an ungodly hour every day and come home with an aching back that we pray will hold out long enough to get him to old age in one piece. Outside of shoes, socks and underwear, almost everything my family wears was bought used. We’ve been on one vacation in 12 years.

I watched as my family’s health insurance was gutted and destroyed. Our private market insurance, which we had to have because my husband’s employer is too small to have a group plan, was made illegal. We were left with the option of either buying an Obamacare plan with unaffordable deductibles and insanely ridiculous out of pocket maxes, or paying the very gov’t that destroyed our healthcare a fine for not buying the gov’t mandated plan that we cannot afford. We now have short term insurance that isn’t really insurance at all, and I live in fear of one of us getting injured or sick with anything I can’t fix from the medicine cabinet.

I have watched as education, which was already sketchy when I was a kid, became an all out joke of wholly unmathematical math, gold stars for all, and self-loathing anti-Americanism. My family has taken an enormous financial hit as I stay home to home school our child. At least she’ll be able to do old-fashioned math well enough to see how much they are screwing her. A silver lining to every cloud, I guess.

I’ve sat by and held my tongue as I was called deplorable and a bitter clinger and told that I didn’t build that. I’ve been called a racist and a xenophobe and a chump and even an “ugly folk.” I’ve been told that I have privilege, and that I have inherent bias because of my skin color, and that my beloved husband and father are part of a horrible patriarchy. Not one goddamn bit of that is true, but if I dare say anything about it, it will be used as evidence of my racism and white fragility.

Raised to be a Republican, I held my nose and voted for Bush, the Texas-talking blue blood from Connecticut who lied us into 2 wars and gave us the unpatriotic Patriot Act. I voted for McCain, the sociopathic neocon songbird “hero” that torpedoed the attempt to kill the Obamacare that’s killing my family financially. I held it again and voted for Romney, the vulture capitalist skunk that masquerades as a Republican while slithering over to the Democrat camp as often as they’ll tolerate his oily, loathsome presence.

And I voted for Trump, who, if he did nothing else, at least gave a resounding Bronx cheer to the richly deserving smug hypocrites of DC. Thank you for that Mr. President, on behalf of all of us nobodies. God bless you for it.

And now I have watched as people who hate me and mine and call for our destruction blatantly and openly stole the election and then gaslighted us and told us that it was honest and fair. I am watching as the GOP does NOTHING about it. They’re probably relieved that upstart Trump is gone so they can get back to their real jobs of lining their pockets and running interference for their corporate masters. I am watching as the media, in a manner that would make Stalin blush, is silencing anyone who dares question the legitimacy of this farce they call democracy. I know, it’s a republic, but I am so tired of explaining that to people I might as well give in and join them in ignorance.

I will not vote again; they’ve made it abundantly clear that my voice doesn’t matter. Whatever irrational, suicidal lunacy the nanny states thinks is best is what I’ll get. What it decided I need is a geriatric pedophile who shouldn’t be charged with anything more rigorous than choosing between tapioca and rice pudding at the old folks home, and a casting couch skank who rails against racism while being a descendant of slave owners.

I am done. Don’t ask me to pledge to the flag, or salute the troops, or shoot fireworks on the 4th. It’s a sick, twisted, heartbreaking joke, this bloated, unrecognizable corpse of a republic that once was ours.

Now go read the payoff. Trust me, you do NOT want to miss it; it’s a most fitting closer for one of the most brilliant, cleanly-expressed blasts of heartfelt outrage I’ve seen in nearly 20 years of blogging, and that’s all there is to it. Gore’s worthy follow-up:

Four days after the election, a woman calling herself OHMama posted “I Am Done” on The Burning Platform website. It was the site’s most read article of 2020. SLL and many other websites reposted it. It was raw, explosive anger and a profoundly moving lament; OHMama was clearly at the end of her rope. The closing paragraph packed a wallop.

OHMama gave voice to what’s beneath the surface for so many of us—abject disgust, barely contained fury, and dread of what’s to come. She claimed her own life to live it as she sees fit, and damn them, damn them all, who presume to rule us.

That anger surfaced in Washington on January 6. The protest and raid of the Capitol were illuminating in several ways. They defined the two sides: the government, its string-pullers, and its allies versus those who despise and oppose them.

Legacy media was filled with paeans to our “sacred” government and its “temples,” deploring the “sacrilege” of those who “desecrated” and “defiled” them. What absolute tripe! Washington is a Corruptocracy, a moral cesspool. Anything sacred would have been vandalized or torn down by the mobs allowed to run riot last year. They would have toppled the Washington Monument if they could have figured out how.

Americans who build businesses or pursue careers honestly producing goods and services for voluntary trade are engaging in activities far more sacred than anything that goes on in the capital. Millions of parents instill moral principles in their children, only to see those principles defiled daily by the government. Washington delenda est—if it were leveled and sown with salt America and the world would be better for it.

Our opponents have (a) clearly defined goal—absolute power—and they are absolutely committed to subjugating or eliminating anyone who stands in their way. Until recently most of those on our side didn’t even realize we were at war.

Nothing will be fair about the coming fight. It’s no use whining about the other side’s lack of principles, its lies, hypocrisy, unfairness, ruthlessness, and control of virtually every important institution. They’re evil totalitarians, what the hell do we expect? Their principle is absolute power and they’ll do whatever is necessary to acquire and keep it.

Ashli Babbitt’s death, if it is to mean anything at all, should be the cold slap of reality across the faces of those who haven’t grasped the nature of what we face.

Head over and read all of Gore’s piece too. Between the two of ’em, these posts say just about everything that needs to be said. The Enemy, flush with victory and believing it secure, will assuredly ignore the increasingly clangorous warning of the tocsin these writings represent. He will come to regret it, and sorely. Unfortunately, a dear price for his arrogance, his hubris, his greed, his incalculable fucking stupidity, will be extracted from ALL of us.