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Neal Stiffelman's avatar

At times I wonder if there's a special carnival sideshow wing in Hell where the souls of gullible rubes who voted Republican are doomed to wander, slack-jawed mouths agape and drooling, as demons pop out to yank fingers off their hands and noses off their faces, wrench arms from their sockets and slice buttocks off torsos, until those tormented souls spy a neon sign above a golden door that reads "This Way to the Egress", and when they walk through the door all is restored... until they realize they are trapped in this Carnival of Souls and begins again. And all the while and for all eternity, growing louder with each circuit, spectral P T Barnum's laughter echoes through the Hellscape Midway.

Of course, Gehenna is much much worse for the predatory, for those who tempted those voters in the Time of Living.

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Sarah's avatar

It’s very difficult to maintain compassion and be the loving, kind person I know myself to be while we’re all being held hostage by the corrupt, the manipulative, the lying, the gaslighting, the ignorant, the stupid, the destructive and their lemmings. Wanting them to suffer in the way you’ve described is a natural outcome of being treated this way.

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Neal Stiffelman's avatar

In large measure it's their confidence in nightmarish scenarios of Rapture, Armageddon, and Heavenly bliss that permits them to pursue such cruelty to others. It's their fear of Reason that is so frustrating. It's the embrace of medieval ideas and ideals, the tribalism, the willingness to surrender their minds to hucksters and monsters. Of course people can change, hoping they will, but... and it's not limited to the US. I am aghast at what's happening in many countries around the globe. At the core, I reckon, it's racism wearing many cloaks.

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Jeff Tiedrich's avatar

can I just pop in to say that Carnival of Souls is a great film

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Neal Stiffelman's avatar

A great very-low budget film, (set in Lawrence, Kansas, which I know pretty well), and fairly literate. Not simply a slasher film, it's a noteworthy achievement.

I spent a couple weeks one summer in the mid-seventies picking up trash at the midway to the carnival in Maury County, Tennessee. Eye-opening. Looking at the world from the carny's point of view. The idiot farm families gaping at the eerily painted booths. Number One exhibit: The Death Car of Jayne Mansfield. That'll give you some idea. All the time, the loudspeakers we're playing "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" and "Heard it in a Love Song".

There's a memory that sticks.

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Karen Livolsi's avatar

What kind of defective brains think these ravings have any basis in even the outer most fringes of reality? Why are they even in print? Do you think Joe Manchin 20 years ago would ever entertain seriously answering accusations about stoves? But, here we are. Stoves.

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Chuck's avatar

I totally love the quoted comment cameos--very Onionesque, wouldn’t you agree?

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antlisa1201's avatar

Love it! Laughed out loud! Rep I don’t know who the hell she is And insert sound of head exploding! Funny shit 🤣

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