Rusty's Armory

Gray Rocking the Bull**** Bolsheviks

Posted on January 31, 2021

Sunday rolls around a bit cool and sunny this morning as I process the turn of the country towards authoritarianism.  I do believe the neoliberal establishment has won the battle of the hearts and minds of the American people, and now it is time to treat them for the boor and bully they are.

I am no longer confronting it.  My rebellion is going to be passive, to quietly throw sand in its gears when I can and then disappear.  I don’t want to be in the vanguard of this resistance.  That is where hero’s die and are remembered for their heroism, and I no longer care to die with my boots on.  That is a young mans glory.  Old men’s glory is their white hair and peacefully dying in their sleep.

Gray Rocking is some sort of psychological term for dealing with boors by being neutrally responsive to them nor engaging them in any way.  I am applying it to the neoliberal left that has split off an declared me the enemy.  I am done dealing with them.  I’ll deal with them at the ballot box. My vote is still secret, and as long as it remains a secret, I will vote against them.  I will quietly but resolutely resist new taxes, new property controls, and not tip my hand in advance.  I leave the political sites and comment sections to brash and foolish people.

So goes my patriotism, my love of country, and my legacy to the following generations. I got mine, throw yours away if you wish.

There.  That is out of the way.

Annie-Annie, our adopted stray labradore and something else, is still limping along.  She has her good moments, and her bad moments.  Sometimes I wonder if I am selfishly prolonging her life, and at other times I am glad when I see her offer her toy to me for a gentle game of tug-o-war and playful bites when I try to grab it from between her legs.  Still, that gray muzzle and gray eyebrows let me know that this is not going to go on forever.  The day will arrive when I have to make that hard decision and that day seems to be approaching faster than I want it to.  But perhaps it is better this way so that when the day arrives, I do the right thing.

Bucephalus, my aging Dodge Grand Caravan is inspected for another year now.  I admitted defeat and let the mechanic install a new taillight assembly because I couldn’t figure out how to unhook that new-fangled plug from the old one. The mechanic reached in, unplugged it, and popped the new one in and told Snookums there was no charge.  Now if I ever get the cataracts done, I’ll drive for a short while longer. My vision is so bad now that I am having difficulty in writing, and I have all but given up on reading. 

Soon warm weather will arrive, and I will move to the porch, shooing the feral cats away.  They think they own it now, but I am human.  I am bully. I am neoliberal on the porch.

So the rota of days goes.

Good morning!