Announcing a Global War Against Bullshit!
I have had enough and cannot take it anymore!
George Carlin in his final “It’s Bad for Ya” special in 2008:
“Tell the truth. Don’t be bullshitting people. Like I say, there’s enough bullshit as it is. There’s enough bullshit as it is.
In fact, there’s just enough, did you know that? There’s just enough bullshit to hold things together in this country.
Bullshit is the glue that binds us as a nation. Where would we be without our safe, familiar, American bullshit?
Land of the free.
Home of the brave.
The American dream.
All men are equal.
Justice is blind.
The press is free.
Your vote counts.
Business is honest.
The good guys win.
The police are on your side.
God is watching you.
Your standard of living will never decline.
And everything is going to be just fine.
The official national bullshit story.
I call it the American okeydoke.
Every one, every one of those items is provably untrue at one level or another, but we believe them because they’re pounded into our heads from the time we’re children.
That’s what they do with that kind of thing; pound it into the heads of kids because they know that children are much too young to be able to muster an intellectual defense against a sophisticated idea like that.
And they know that up to a certain age, children believe everything their parents tell them, and as a result, they never learn to question things.
Nobody questions things in this country anymore.
Nobody questions anything.
Everybody is too fat and happy.
Everybody has got a cell phone that’ll make pancakes and rub their balls now.
Way too fucking prosperous for our own good, way too fucking prosperous.
Americans have been bought off in silence by toys and gizmos, and no one learns to question things.”
On Thanksgiving, my wife Sally Shideler Swindle awoke late in the day to inform me that she had a miscarriage the previous night:
It has now been 3 weeks — 21 days since then. And this is now the first time that I’m bringing myself to write a piece about this.
The reason for that is that I have been deeply impaired in emotionally and psychologically processing this profound loss for us. This is not our first miscarriage. However, it may very well be our last.
There comes a point in which a couple wanting to raise a child has to stop and assess frankly: are we just not going to be able to be parents? Are the health and medical challenges too severe to overcome?
To assess these questions, one needs to consider them with facts, science, rationality, and moral clarity.
Not with feel-good bullshit.
Not with placebos.
Not with “thoughts and prayers.”
Not with cliches.
Not with pre-modern, bogus theology.
Not with New Age pseudo-science crap.
I am so tired of all the bullshit that people have told me since Sally’s miscarriage.
I am so tired of people popping up out of the woodwork who I haven’t heard from in who-knows-how-long and talking to me as though we had a grown child who was killed in a car accident.
People who have had no idea about our situation or understand how we live choose to pop up to “help” and in doing so just end up making me feel worse.
I am sick of the fake people pretending to be my friend when we both know they don’t care.
It’s as though all my life, I’ve lived amongst professional, world-class bullshit artists and salesmen. As a journalist and political analyst for over 15 years now, perpetually I’ve been surrounded by people lying to me, often because they’ve been lying to themselves. And I’ve learned to spot it.
I can fucking tell when people are bullshitting me. And it enrages me because they think that I’m too stupid not to realize their lies. I know that they’re just pretending to be my friend because they want me to write a news article for them or publish their book or promote whatever cause they care about so much.
Or maybe they’re just pretending to be my friend because they want to convert me to their bullshit religious theology. That happens a lot too.
I think part of why I’ve learned the bullshit-spotting so well is because I grew up in Indiana. I was born in Bloomington on January 29, 1984, but grew up in Sunnyvale, California from 1987 through 1994.
Thus: pre-school through the start of fifth grade in Silicon Valley. (I never understood it as that growing up, but now realize that’s what it was.) In that environment, talking openly and honestly about who we were was encouraged and valued.
And then fifth grade through graduating high school (1994-2002) in Carmel, Indiana followed by college at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana (2002-2006). After graduating I lived for a year in Indianapolis’s Broad Ripple Arts district before moving back to Muncie upon getting engaged to my first wife. (We lived in Muncie from 2007 through 2010 until the late David Horowitz moved us out to live in Sherman Oaks, Callifornia when I worked for him as associate editor of FrontPageMag and managing editor of NewsReal Blog.)
The cultures that settled in Carmel and Muncie are very different than the cultures of the Bay Area.
How in particular are they different?
They are filled with so much more bullshit.
The Midwest is the Land of Bullshit.
It is the land where people pretend to be nice.
It is the land where people grit their teeth. Where you “toughen up.” Where you “walk it off.” Where you’re supposed to shut up and take it.
Or else you’re weak.
Where people mistake politeness for respect.
And I have had enough.
NO MORE BULLSHIT.
NO MORE LIES.
NO MORE GASLIGHTING.
I don’t know yet what all we’re going to write about here at God of the Desert Digital Media Studios over the coming weeks.
The truth is that I’ve found too many topics. The bullshit that enrages me just overflows everywhere. And it’s not just in America or the abusive, violent Midwest.
The Bullshit is Everwhere.
There’s Bullshit on every continent where human beings have set foot. This is what people seemingly cannot help themselves from producing in order to avoid confronting and fixing the horrible truths in their lives.
Bullshit is a coping mechanism. And I call a Global War Against Bullshit.
People produce and propagate bullshit rather than deal with the violence, crime, corruption, and criminality staring them in the face. People choose to bullshit about theology and political ideology and—especially in Indiana—stupid crap like sports rivalries rather than talk about VIOLENCE and CRIME and EVIL.
And I have had enough!
Say it with me!
NO MORE BULLSHIT!
NO MORE LIES!
NO MORE GASLIGHTING!
There have been times I have been so angry I have just had to stand up and yell it aloud!
How about we all yell it aloud 7 times?
I am really saddened to hear about the miscarriage. While I have never experienced my wife having a miscarriage I know many people who have, and like most people, I have mourned the loss of what could have been.
Grief is complicated and we often mourn more than just what is kind of expected for us to morn. There are a lot of people dealing with grief that goes unsaid. Life is great and precious, but it also has a way of wearing us down as we age and the sadness compounds upon sadness.
The grief you are experiencing is real even though it wasn't you that lost the pregnancy. Doors close every time things like this happen and that's very sad. I want you to know that whatever grief you are feeling. It's okay to feel it, it's real and it hurts. I know you will find meaning going forward. If you want to message me or talk I am available.
As always thank you for your perspectives and worldview.
Very sorry to hear about this David. Keep your chin up