A Fistful Of People Who Don't Suck!

I know I've been here before and even I'm getting tired of hearing it, but this year fucking sucked. On the personal front; my last grandmother lost her marbles, I got mindfucked by a transphobic shrink, my beloved cat of nearly two decades died and the first BFF I've had since high school up and moved to goddamn England (and I fucking H-A-T-E goddamn England).

On the political front; the Democrats have become McCarthyites, The Republicans have (officially) become Nazis, everybody raped everybody and revolutions were betrayed on three separate continents (in Venezuela, Kurdistan and Catalonia) just in time for the October Uprising's centennial anniversary and that doesn't even cover America's ever expanding net of ghastly foreign interventions (coming to a madrasa near you!).

So it should come as little surprise that I had a hard time coming up with a list of people who actually DON'T suck. For the last few years I've topped off the year with a list of 16 People Who Don't Suck! Kind of an attempt to make up for the overwhelming negativity that usually governs this blog. This year I'm sorry to say that I just couldn't cut it. There quite simply aren't 16 people alive who don't suck, at least not in a noteworthy way. Hell, only eight people follow this blog (all honorary members of this list). So I've had to settle for a A Fistful Of People Who Don't Suck! If some of these names sound familiar that's because more than one of them have made this list before. I know, I know, but like I said I'm not working with a very deep bench here.

The names on this list are of people who haven't let me down this year and it's a depressingly short list.... But their are a dozen. A dozen very dearest motherfuckers who give me a sliver of hope for this wretched species of lice with tennis shoes. It's not a super diverse crowd, they're mostly chicks. I haven't exactly been a huge fan of guys this year. But it is what it is. I don't do this thing to be politically correct. I do this thing because.... Wait? Why do I do this again? Oh well, fuck it, here it is.


Dr. Julia Serano- When I hit the skids this year after my duel with a tranny bashing shrink, the writings of Julia Serano, the loudest voice in transfeminism, gave me the strength to get back up and fight like hell. Julia is every bigots worst nightmare; a brilliant, fearless and above all else relentless trans woman who's not afraid to get her knuckles bloody bashing back. Your garden variety cis-female isn't a fraction of the woman Julia is. She's my communities Malcolm X and we could use ten more of her for the battles that lie ahead.

Julian Assange- Everybody seems to hate this motherfucker but I just want to give him a big sloppy kiss on the lips. I could give a flying fuck where he got the goddamn Clinton Emails. Releasing them was the right thing to do. Information is power, damn the torpedoes! That's always been Julian's guiding philosophy and it's led him to become the best friend democracy has left. And that's why all the "they"'s of this world hate him. Even trapped inside London's Ecuadorian Embassy, Julian Assange is the one motherfucker who holds the feet of the powerful to the fire. I can't wait for the Trump Emails.

Michelle Zauner- One of the more obscure names on the list; Michelle is probably better known by the stage name of her one woman band, Japanese Breakfast, who, in my humble opinion, made the best album of the year with Soft Sounds From Another Planet; a hypnotically dreamy opus about love, sex and heartbreak in a world that feels more like a sci-fi dystopia with every passing second. The fact that I also happen to be madly in love with this girl is just icing on the cake. There's nothing sexier than an Asian girl with a guitar. If she's brilliant, even better. Call it Yoko Ono Syndrome.

Judith Butler- The Alfred Kinsey of gender studies, no one has taught us more about how and why we identify than Judith Butler. She's far and above the brightest bulb in the feminist cabinet and unlike many of her close-minded contemporaries, she's also been a consistently unshakable advocate for Trans rights. As if that weren't enough, she's also stuck her neck out to become one of the leading voices of the BDS Movement, using her own Jewish heritage as a platform to stand on and stare down the Israeli's increasingly genocidal apartheid state.

Angela Keaton- My friend, my mentor and the executive director of antiwar.com; Angela makes the cut again this year for not only being a leader of the anti-assimilationist wing of the Libertarian Movement but for fearlessly taking on the boys club of sexist cretins who are attempting to hijack it. Angela isn't afraid to make waves and enemies too. She refuses to be seen but not heard. She refuses to allow cis-men to take advantage of her hard work without giving something back. And she puts up with more fucking bullshit than anyone I know, including my own. If the Libertarian Movement has a future, it will be led by unapologetic bitches like Angela Keaton. Lets just hope the boys club are listening. If not, it's their fucking funeral and I'm shit out of roses. Give em hell AK. For all of us.

Thomas Knapp- This year has been absolute shit for pretty much everything but writing. In case you haven't noticed my output on this blog has nearly doubled and the eyeballs who've seen it have increased too. The latter is largely thanks to my comrade Tom who is the only motherfucker smart enough to publish my shit on a regular basis, on Rational Review. As much as I prize being an eccentric lone wolf, I have to say, validation is pretty fucking cool too. Thanks Tom.

Chelsea Manning- One of the few redeemable things that Obama did with his presidency was granting Private Chelsea Manning back her well earned freedom. And every breath of free air that she breaths feels like sweet revenge against the cunts who conspired to destroy her for blowing the whistle on the circus of war crimes and despotism that is America's morally bankrupt "War on Terror". Somewhere in Arizona, a decrepit old war junkie with a brain tumor the size of one of Chelsea's new tits is balling his fucking eyes out. Suck it up breeder. Sometimes the good girls win.

Rand Paul- After running one of the most disgracefully disappointing presidential campaigns in the history of fringe politics, the Kentucky senator seems to be breaking his dick trying to make up for it. Whether he's taking on the Saudi Lobby, flaming certain unnamed Arizona charity cases, bashing Trump's total dereliction of putting America first or standing nearly alone in opposing genocidal sanctions and reckless NATO expansion; Rand seems hellbent on making up for lost opportunities (he could have been the first American president with a soul since jimmy Carter). And what's his thanks for this effort? Getting sacked by Ned Flanders for not trimming the hedges.... Tough luck motherfucker. Keep up the good work. I'm pretty close to forgiving you for handing your father's fire over to the angry monkey from 2001: A Space Odyssey (you know, Trump). I'll get there, one day at a time, one day at a time.... For now though, at least you no longer suck.

Matt Taibbi- Matt's back on the list for the simple fact that he seems to be the only substantial member of the mainstream left media that hasn't up and lost his goddamn mind over Trump. Oh, he's reemed the Orangutan In Chief ferociously on numerous occasions but he stands alone among his colleges for his abject refusal to drink the fucking Kool-Aid on the Russiagate hysteria. This shouldn't be a herculean feet, I can't imagine Edward Murrow buying into that horseshit. But in what passes for the Fourth Estate these days, refusing a wagon ride might as well be taking a goddamn bullet. The good Doctor Gonzo would be proud.

Lucy Steigerwald- Playboy, Reason, Vice, The Daily Beast; it would probably be easier to list the places where Lucy's primo journalism hasn't been published (Colonoscopy Today?) but I know her work best from my stomping grounds at antiwar.com. A site that I love dearly, though I would be a liar if I didn't admit that the place can be kind of a sausage fest sometimes. I always find it ironic that often the only chick on the board has a beard and a dick. And what with Justin Raimondo's tragic one way trip to Trumpville, Lucy's sharp, lucid prose can feel like a welcome breath of fresh air in a planet polluted by grabby idle-minded cis-men.

Justin Roiland & Dan Harman- In a very bleak year, Rick and Morty, Justin Roiland and Dan Harman's brilliantly stupid animated sci-fi masterpiece, has been one of the few bright spots. Whether Rick is turning himself into a rat murdering pickle in order to avoid therapy (should have tried that one) or Morty is turning himself into Kushneresque sociopath so he can mack on kinky bar skanks and make a mint on Wall Street, Rick and Morty never ceases to lighten the load with their weird mix of high concept science fiction and lowbrow gross out humor and we have Justin and Dan to thank for it.


Well, that's it dearest motherfuckers, my dirty dozen. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here. If you celebrate Christmas like me then have a merry one but try not to be a dick about it. If you don't celebrate Christmas, go get some Chinese and see Star Wars five times. You'll probably have a better time than the rest of us.



Peace, Love and Empathy- CH



Soundtrack: Theme songs for the dirty dozen.

Julia Serano- Bad Reputation By Joan Jett
Julian Assange- Sabotage By Beastie Boys
Michelle Zauner- Boyish By Japanese Breakfast
Judith Butler- Changes By David Bowie
Angela Keaton- Dicknail By Hole
Tom Knapp- Kick Out The Jams By The MC5
Chelsea Manning- The Seeker By The Who
Rand Paul- Son Of A Gun By The Vaselines
Matt Taibbi- Some Might Say By Oasis
Lucy Steigerwald- Surface Envy By Sleater-Kinney
Justin & Dan- Feels Good By Tony Toni Tone

Pretty On The Inside

I don't sleep very soundly these days but sometimes I do dream. I dream about being feminine. I dream about being slight and graceful like a Russian dancer. I dream about being shiny and cute and delicate and petite and a million other things I'll never ever be. I dream about being like Natalie Portman or Anna Karina or Chloe Sevigny or a million other people I'll never ever be. In these dreams it's not enough to be simply female. In these dreams I have to be ideal, like a princess from an old Disney cartoon. These dreams never last long. I always wake up and when I do it always hurts.

I wake up to facial hair and chest hair and back hair. I wake up to masculinity and obesity and depression. I wake up to real life and sometimes real life really burns. Truth be told, even if I didn't lack the necessary plumbing to be biologically female, I could never be truly feminine. I just don't have it in me. Call it butch or call it laziness, but I'm simply not equipped for make-up and pretty dresses. I don't even like to shave, let alone wax. And as much as I love Anna Karina, I'll always be more like Janis Joplin with a slacker goth streak. And most of the time that's OK. But I still have those dreams.

The DSM calls this phenomena Gender Dysphoria. They qualify it as a mental illness and on that I actually agree with the little Mengeles of the medical establishment but, contrary to popular mythology, Gender Dysphoria has very little to do with gender identity itself. It's a form of social anxiety caused by the unbearable pressure put on trans and gender variant people by our cis-heterosexist western society to fit into the rigid contours of an outdated gender system. For anyone biologically male who doesn't identify as such, we face a particularly high bar for social acceptance that is sometimes even upheld by the trans community itself. There exists a general attitude that we as a people don't count unless we're more feminine than female.

This pressure is all to often self-regulated, with sisters pushing sisters to hold the Mabeline line so as not to invite more negative attention from the cis-world. The origins of this affliction stem largely from the aforementioned little Mengeles of the medical establishment itself. For decades the only hope for trans people to receive treatment was to go to a handful of state funded cis-male doctors who withheld hormones and surgery from all but the most clownishly feminine T-girls who met their sexist standards for what defines womanhood. These Trans women, forced into becoming chauvinistic parodies of what certain men thought women should be, became unwitting billboards for what a trans person should look like. This became the source of the transphobia within the Women's Movement that came to pervade the Second Wave of western feminism. Cis-gender feminists saw their would-be-sisters aping like Miss America and presumptuously assumed it was a cruel joke at their expense when, in reality, trans women were victims of the same system of male oppression; doing what they had to do to survive.

Medical options have slowly expanded for trans people, albeit with a steep price tag, but old habits die hard. While few people question the rights of women like Tig Notaro and K. D. Lang to identify as female, genderqueer dykes like me still have to fight tooth and nail just to remain visible in the eyes of the straight world and even our own community. I'm too head strong to allow a bunch of breeder cunts and Auntie Caitlyn house queers tell me how to express my gender identity but I remain haunted by dreams of unquestionable femininity and no amount of intellectual rationality seems to be enough to put these dreams to rest. At the end of the day, all I ever really wanted was to feel like one of the girls without having to pay for it with the few authentically masculine aspects of my complicated gender identity.

Is this too much to ask for, dearest motherfuckers? I don't think it is but this fucked up place we call planet earth has never made a hell of a lot of sense to yours truly. Maybe in another life. Then again, maybe in another life the rest of you motherfuckers will grow up and fucking evolve. A girl can dream cant he? Until that day, I guess I'll just have to learn to love being pretty on the inside.



Peace, Love and Empathy- CH



Soundtrack; Songs that influenced this post.

* Piece Of My Heart By Janis Joplin
* Dreams By The Cranberries
* Pretty On The Inside By Hole
* Insomniac By Echobelly
* I'll Be Your Mirror By The Velvet Underground & Nico
* Wild Horses By The Sundays
* Delicate, Petite & Other Things I'll Never Be By Against Me!
* Everything Is Embarrassing By Sky Ferreira

The Abyss Stares Back

Fascism is a tricky subject. Everybody seems to have a different interpretation of what it really means. Some people seem to struggle over the very nature of its existence; Whether it constitutes an actual political science or simply a phenomenon that occurs like a natural disaster in jackboots. Most people however just use the word like a rock to throw from the perceived safety of their glass houses.

Of coarse, being a bitchy autodidact with an opinion on pretty much everything, I have my own theories. I've always seen fascism as the final form of statism before a government collapses beneath its own weight, a desperate last ditch effort to salvage the unsalvageable with brute force. It usually involves the militarization of every facet of day to day life, the sanctification of the use of violence as a means of empowering the herd above the individual and an elimination of any existing boundaries separating big business, big government and the standing army they both require to exist in times of extreme turbulence.

If this all sounds frighteningly familiar then your probably an American and one of the few without your head surgically attached to the inside of your colon, so congrats on that. The bad news end of this paragraph is that America has never looked more fascist than it does right now. Unlike most leftists, I don't blame this entirely on Trump. The military-intelligence-police state has been rapidly expanding in this country for decades with Democrats doing more than their share of the work; Empowering the Executive Office to homicidal perportions and filling our prison plantation archipelago with waves of designated super-predators. But Trump is the cherry on top of the Reich, a hyper-nationalist demagogue who chums the herd with bucket-loads of fear and loathing while he hands the reigns of power over to a junta of decaying old generals ready to play this crumbling empire out to the apocalypse like a harp from hell.

The only thing more disturbing to me than the right's plunge into unveiled full-tilt military despotism is that the left in this country isn't too far behind. With the Orange Reich upon us, far too many people even on the far left seem to be mimicking their enemies on the right in a tragically foolish attempt to out-fash them with equal and opposite reactionary mob rule. We see it with the sainted thugs in ANTIFA, which I believe is Italian for ironic, steamrolling over any half-baked bigot like Brownshirts for practicing their right to free speech irresponsibly. You see it with the limp-wristed Millennials on college campus' across America who go running to authority figures like children every time they get their feelings hurt, demanding the sanitation of their sacred safe spaces by any means necessary. You see it with the new McCarthyites of the Democratic Party blaming every traffic jam or busted light bulb on the Russian bogeyman, Vladimir Putin and sliming anyone who dares to challenge the company line of the new Camelot they've found in Langley. And you see it in the dreamy eyes of young socialists so thirsty to find a demagogue to call their own that they'll gladly bow down to any drone strike imperialist who promises them free room and board.

We've seen this story before, or at least history geeks like me have. During the last rise of fascism in Europe many fine leftists found themselves turning to the red fascism of Stalin's Soviet Union. Many of these fine folks put their lives on the line as partisans in the Second World War only to find themselves tasting the ugly end of the people's stick in the Warsaw Pact or being abandoned all together in places like Italy and Greece, gifted by Stalin himself at Yalta to the new wave of NATO fascists operating under Operation Gladio.

Friedrich Nietzsche, a brilliant anarchist thinker often mislabeled as a proto-fascist by pseudo-lefty imbeciles, tried to warn us about this troubling phenomena when he wrote- "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster....for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."

What I see in the left today is the abyss staring back and it haunts me like keffiyeh clad wraith. We need more Black Panthers and less ANTIFA. We need more Students for a Democratic Society and less snowflake social media warriors. We need more George McGovern's and less Al Franken's. We need more Murray Bookchin's and less Bernie Sander's. But more than anything we need leftists, real leftists, true leftists, be they anarchist, Marxist, socialist or libertarian, to commit themselves to smashing the state rather than empowering it with a red make-over. 

The only way to truly defeat fascism is to stomp it out in it's larvae form. To put it bluntly, America as we know it has gotta go. If not then lets just say here's looking at you Abyss.



Peace, Love and Empathy- CH



Soundtrack; Songs that influenced this post.

* Toxicity By System Of A Down
* Masseduction By St. Vincent
* Holland 1945 By Neutral Milk Hotel
* Hard To Resist By Bully
* Nazi Punks Fuck Off By Dead Kennedys
* The End By The Doors
* Youth Against Fascism By Sonic Youth
* Cherub Rock By Smashing Pumpkins
* Like A Rolling Stone By Bob Dylan
* Sugar By System Of A Down
* Dispatch From Mar-a-Lago By L7