An Essay: The Epitome of Ugly
The Devolution of Decorum: G-Strings and Presidents
It comes with empathy and my deepest condolences to inform you that you were probably not born one of the pretty ones. In the grand scheme of things, it really is inconsequential. The reality is that no matter how imperfect you were born, the invisible beauty competition we enter from the moment of our birth doesn’t end at our nose. Eventually, we all learn that real beauty lives in the character of the vessel. The body, the face, the superficial are no substitute for personality and moral behavior. Example after example continues to demonstrate this trend. Ted Bundy, handsome but a serial killer. The Menendez brothers, handsome but unwilling to abandon their riches for safety. Instead, they shot gun their “cruel” parents with the hope they could get rid of their tormentors and keep the family treasure. Karoline Leavitt is a beauty queen that spews vile dialogue in support of a “Presidential” regime that turns the Constitution into a parchment toilet seat liner for a gold encrusted shit bowl. Beauty is charisma’s embodied twin, it’s seductive, but it doesn’t reveal a person’s virtues.
The ugliest people I have had to witness in my lifetime have been politicians. As a youth when I heard Ronald Reagan utter the words “welfare queen”, the dog whistle perked my ears like the thud of a rocket launch—I felt the impact. Most didn’t hear ‘Black and brown people.’ I did. Even as a preteen, I’d already learned how to translate the uppity English of the powerful into street truth: ‘I know you’re talking shit about us, you piece of shit.’ Their brazen subversive language was layered in plausible deniability for the unsuspecting or those rooting for their side that could come to their defense and begin the gaslighting. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on. Their power doesn’t conceal their devilishness—it amplifies it. Their corruption reeks like a public fart in an elevator.
As a teenager the lies continued. “No new taxes” is a lie that has echoed for decades. A war for the ‘liberation’ of Kuwait was, in reality, just another grab for oil. There was no greater ideal for the war. The idea that a small Middle Eastern country like Kuwait was of any real value to us is bullshit. It was always about the same instruments of greed: money and oil. The only thing that’s changed is the roster of criminals pretending to be leaders. If the Iraqi debacle and the collusion of current and recent presidents with known terrorist financiers is not enough evidence to demonstrate the soul of greed involved in Middle East dealings, then ignorance becomes your modus operendi.
The ugly never stopped at lying. Once I became a young adult, lust was on the menu—à la carte, JFK-style, while “Slick Willey” was actually sticking cigars in interns’ vaginas in the Oval Office. The desecration of the oval office was the call of duty for the former Governor from Arkansas. Never mind that his wife was probably right there in the next room—maybe plotting a power move of her own.
The next disgust-laden actions taken were making up complicated lies that were told on the world stage to justify the most recent war in Iraq. And to confirm my initial youthful suspicions about the dog whistles they blow on, they sent one of the only black men whose reputation was unstained by controversy (Colin Powell) to deliver the poison that would justify setting fire to Iraq. They destroyed the untainted Black leader’s reputation—mission success. Two birds. One stone. Millions died. And to bring the argument back full circle, we got access to more oil with the added bonus that it lubricated the lucrative machine of the military industrial complex for 20 years.
Today, the ugliest, most heinous behavior encircles the nation’s capital like an evil spirit, shrouding, enveloping the entire scene in corruption and a slimy sheen. Lies, violation of human rights, more lies. Never mind cigars in vaginas, Lady Liberty herself is being pimped out of the White House with each wing littered with backroom “deals” and swollen knees from the groveling of career politicians waiting to service the MAGA cult leader while he fantasizes about getting serviced in his new gold encrusted plane. Greed, lust, Envy, Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth and Pride are the calling cards of the current crop of leaders, bodies with no soul, dwelling in our nation’s capital. But it’s not new, we’re just getting it all in the open, they have no shame. At least the previous administrations suffered some shame and indignity created by their actions.
We now have a collision of ecosystems—a ménage à trois of a beauty pageant, an old nasty fat man, and back alley tugs in this iteration of the circus. All on full display for the country—for the world. “They” behave as if there are no other adults in the room which makes it even worse. They’re subjecting Americans to a trauma we wouldn’t even let children see. It’s that perverse. That’s the point, however, to give “the people” a show they can’t look away from. Join the orgy—or get exiled. Maybe to a terrorist prison. No lawyer. No appeal. They are trying to make ugly the new beautiful, but as we have seen it is not going to work, even if it evokes wonder as to how Americans allowed the ugly to come this far. They didn’t drain the swamp. They crowned Swamp Thing king. More terrifying yet is that the trend reveals the next regime will outdo the last.
The next level of depravity could be a rewriting of our national anthem. One to match our moral direction... "One, two, three, four, five, you ain’t got no alibi, you ugly… you ugly…" IYKYK
