One of the low-key lunatics who skulked around the Seattle's University District would set up shop on the corner of 47th and Brooklyn near the Safeway and rant to anyone within earshot about UFO’s and the CIA. He carried hand-lettered signs detailing in teeny tiny print exactly what the CIA and the UFOs were up to. Not a bad act compared to other street shouters I've seen. If you passed him on the street when he wasn't “performing” he'd mutter “Symptomatic Nerve Gas.” out of the corner of his mouth like a gangster from a 1930's Warner Brothers film.
I never stopped to ask him about Symptomatic Nerve Gas because I had learned years before to never engage with street corner crazies. They were on A Mission … while I was simply curious. Guys like that are searching for full-time converts … not dilettantes. They could get downright testy when they realized I didn't buy into their particular brand of crazy. Don't poke crazy bears with sticks I always say.
But the phrase, “Symptomatic Nerve Gas” has never left my memory. And it's as good as any other reason to superficially explain why roughly 40% (or more) of the U.S. has gone mad … mad I tell you.
My father-in-law was initially a Ben Carson supporter, switched over to Cruz when Carson bailed, and now he'll carry the Trump banner simply because Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee. That's how his brain works. Or, rather, that's what he does because his brain hasn't actually worked for over 40 years.
You'd have to be a blithering idiot to support Ben Carson for president. And then you'd have to be an even bigger blithering idiot to switch over to Ted Cruz. I don't even know how to describe the downward lateral arabesque necessary to spin around and around and around and end up in the Trump camp. It can only be accomplished by the brain-dead.
But …
If you knew my father-in-law had been huffing Symptomatic Nerve Gas for the last four decades … it makes perfect sense.
I saw a video of some loud-mouthed louts confronting Ted Cruz at a rally before the Indiana primary. Their behavior almost made me feel sorry for Ted Cruz. The louts were Trump supporters (surprise surprise) and it would not surprise me if those grinning morons were flying high on Symptomatic Nerve Gas.
In fact looking at The Big Picture ... if you listed every fucked-up thing the U.S. has done since World War II (including incinerating Hiroshima and Nagasaki) you'll probably find that the instigators of the fucked-up thing were fucked-up on Symptomatic Nerve Gas. And the people that went along and supported the fucked up thing were they themselves fucked up on Symptomatic Nerve Gas.
And where did Symptomatic Nerve Gas come from? UFO’s and the CIA of course.
I think the University District’s low-key lunatic was on to something. He wasn't right … be he was definitely on to something. I think he was a casualty of paying too close attention to Current Events.
And of course I'm projecting my own dinged and dented mental health condition onto the Symptomatic Nerve Gas Guy because in my case, watching Current Events for over 40 years has definitely twisted my brain into not-so-amusing animal shapes. Paying attention to The News makes me feel like HAL being lobotomized in 2001. My mind is going. I can feel it.
This is my take on Election Day. It looks like we'll be herded into an All You Can Eat Buffet and told to choose between two bowls of shit. Each one is laced with a fatal dose of poison. You can order a bowl of shit with Cyanide or the bowl of shit with Strychnine. Your choice.
But sane people would refuse to eat shit, poisoned or not.
Wouldn't they?
I think it's pretty easy to judge how fucked up a country is by looking at the candidates the political system produces. The Republicans started out with 17 bowls of poisoned shit and as of last week winnowed it down to just one presumptive bowl.
The Democrats started with five bowls of shit and Bernie Sanders. Now it's just one bowl of poisoned shit and Bernie Sanders. The Main Stream Media, and the Leaders of the Democratic party, are doing everything within their power to make sure Bernie is eliminated and a poisoned bowl of shit emerges victoriously from the convention. I don't specifically know who is in charge but primary elections were rigged so the bowl of poisoned shit won in New York and Illinois.
Unless the FBI indicts a bowl of poisoned shit between now and the Democratic convention in late July, it's probable the choice in November will be between two bowls of poisoned shit.
I think it's time to realize a simple fact and act accordingly. I don't think we should eat shit and never, under any circumstances, eat poisoned shit.
That is the level of my political discourse these days. It's a tad bit scatological isn't it? But I just don't know any other way to put it. I look at Republicans and I look at Democrats and I find it too depressing to imagine what it would be like to believe what they believe. They don't know where they're going but they're on their way.
I have listened to reasonable people lay out their case why Hillary is a better choice than Trump. No matter how they word it … it still is the same Lesser of Two Evils crap. We got here by going along with that argument every fucking election and I can't figure out how in the hell it's going to get any “better” by doing it one more time. As Sam Goldwyn probably said, “Include me … out”
Is Donald Trump going to be president? Is Hillary Clinton going to be president? With grim death gargling at us from every corner … I don't give a good god damn.
