Delusion is a many-splintered ideal for those who either can’t handle reality, or have a need to dream while awake — the entire presidential election was a will-o’-the-wisp drama played like a soap opera.
Despite facts, the most-awesome excuse comes from the scholarly Karl Rove: “Mitt Romney had what I scientifically call a butt-ugly primary.”
The problem here is the Ham Rove is a lie inside a delusion choking on the imaginary.
The GOP has become nothing more than smoke and mirrors without an ounce of scientifically thought-out objectives, a situation noted aptly by Charles P. Pierce at Esquire: You lost because your party has become demented.
(Illustration found here).
And not demented-silly like the Dead Collector, or maybe like Dean Pelton, but more a demented-nefarious, like Queen Bavmorda mating with Gordon Gekko, resulting in their offspring appearing as the Sesame Street-letters, GOP — oh, the scientifically-induced horror.
Pierce’s post came a day or so after the election, and even now, nearly two weeks later, this money quote still says it all:
And it’s very hard to see a way out of it.
It has managed to construct an almost perfect Newtonian hall of mirrors — for each solution, there is within the party an equal, but opposite problem.
There is almost no way to function within the party structure as it has been redefined by the various elements of the conservative “movement” without rounding a corner and colliding with the image of itself coming in the other direction.
And to those insights political, add a strong sense of that nearly-metaphysical emotion of the reality-impaired — one sees what one wants to see, no matter the real facts, a way-self-harming route further down life’s real-quick timeline.
Upon arrival, a realization of reality will be pants-shitting intense.
In keeping with the theme of delusion, one of the most dumb-ass, and way-public marvels in this bat-shit crazed nowadays is the unhinged dream of unmitigated wealth bringing pure joy and happiness — the lottery.
Despite reality to the contrary, way-more people indulge in this delusional route to even-more delusion than any sane person would care to think, or consider — the lottery is one of the most-repugnant things I’ve ever come across, a way-public scam of the highest order.
As the manager (and counter guy, too) of a liquor store, the life of the lottery is one that is hated — in a time of serious economic problems encountered in at least the last three years for sure, the store needs business, but not business that don’t make sense.
(Illustration found here).
Rate of return is way-lowest off the lottery, though, in its process, the most-labor intensive, both at the public counter and behind-the-scenes with preparing daily reports and such.
And the lottery is really, really creepy — dealing with lottery players is way-more of a problem than any drunk people.
Last March, when the Mega Millions topped $540 million and people went stir crazy, I wrote about the disturbing notion of the lottery — if you like, that post is here.
Anyway, a return to the mixture of GOP delusion and the lottery.
Along with the lottery, booze, cigarettes and nasty-candy items, the liquor store also has daily newspapers, the local rag, the Times-Standard (called by locals as ‘The Sub-Standard‘ — a terrible publication), the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, USAToday, and so forth.
One of my customers early last week, an older guy who comes in about every morning for the Chronicle, and has never bought or spoke about the lottery, pulled out a ticket for me to check.
Over time, we’d developed political small-talk in passing — only seconds to flash the newspaper and pay the dollar — with both of us displaying some knowledge of news developments, and it’d never dawned on me the guy was a lottery-playing kind of guy.
He was a President Obama supporter, though, more because of the terrible horror of Mitt Romney than really anything else, and came across as a type of something considered a conservative Democrat.
So when he pulled out that lottery ticket, I kind of went, Whoa!
And was saddened — one of the many terrible side effects of the lottery for me is when a customer you think has sense, or at least some form of cool intelligence, then plays the lottery, the whole transaction becomes a downer, a downdraft in the soul of the matrix.
The episode went something like this, or words to this effect:
“Check this, will you please,” he said. “I feel like I’m going to change our future. I feel it. We both are going to be rich.”
I shrugged in a way-sarcastic motion.
After punching for the correct screen on my little Lottery-machine-thingy, inserting the ticket, the end came quickly — the little slip of paper quickly popping back up along with the words on view: ‘Sorry, not a winner.’
As I handed the ticket back to him, my brain wonderfully-noted: “Dude,” I said, “You just got Karl Roved.”
He tried to suppress a smile, but instead his whole face lit up.
Rest of the week the guy came in for his morning paper with the trace of a knowing smile on his face, but seemingly without even a hint of delusion.