Dear Billie Joe Armstrong: Please Stay
Stay and help cretins like Ted Cruz, Paul Gosar, and Marjorie Taylor Greene experience pain.
by Rich Herschlag
I understand you’ll be leaving us soon for the UK though returning to the US occasionally for dental work. It’s the abortion ruling and a whole bunch of other things. I know, you don’t want to be an American idiot. And I don’t have the time to listen to you whine about nothing and everything all at once. However, this once I’m going to make an exception.
I get it. After SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade I was a basket case, too. So who exactly are these five Supreme Court justices, and whom do they represent? And what are they? They are not "pro-life," because if you're on death row they do not want you to be able to mount a decent appeal regardless of the evidence. And if you're a pregnant human being who got that way via rape they are not in the least concerned with your life. And if you walk the streets of New York or any other safety-minded state to go to work, to school, to buy a loaf of bread, whatever, they are satisfied to have you encounter any random individual with a gun and an arbitrary gripe. They are not "conservative," because they are more than willing to toss out well considered, well established law based on the narrow desires of the most radical portion of the electorate and the PACs who support this radicalism. Welcome to paradise.
All this blah, blah, blah from the right about Sharia law when Obama was in office and look who's really into the concept. Saudi Arabia not long ago allowed women to drive. Any month now we'll meet the Saudis somewhere in the middle of the 19th century and then continue our opposing trajectories. This is a public service announcement. This is only a test.
Next on the list—Obergefell v. Hodges. Then Brown v. Board of Education. And then there's the Holy Grail—the Fourteenth Amendment itself. That's really the root of the problem, isn't it? The post-slavery era has not worked out as well as it should have for raging, sexually frustrated white males, but finally with Dobbs v. Jackson there is light at the end of the tunnel. Know your enemy.
We’re dealing with a vast minority of people in this country who are pro whatever the cruelest option is. They are sadists. These particular sadists masquerade as jurists and scholars, but we see them for what they really are, not simply because of this latest sadistic ruling but because of their rulings cumulatively and because of the way they regard the neediest among us. I walk this empty street on the boulevard of broken dreams.
The person they claim to love the most is the person they loathe the most, and that person is Jesus of Nazareth, who was never spotted forcing a rape victim to carry Satan's baby to term. Who championed the least among us. Cruelty is the name of the game, baby, and Donald Trump is merely their latest advocate. He is replaceable and will indeed be replaced. But the concept of taking one's own spiritual misery, depravity, and hypocrisy and transforming it into policy that pays the misery forward is alive and well in America and just got a major shot in the arm. It’s going to be another summer of unrest. Wake me up when September ends.
It all keeps adding up. I think I’m cracking up. But I for one refuse to despair. I take the long view. If there were still gloves on they must come off entirely now. We cannot suffer fools, hypocrites, and psychopaths. We cannot make peace with them. We cannot compromise with them. We cannot tuck them in and say nighty night and hope they won't lose any sleep. Come on, Billie Joe. Stay and fight. It’ll be fun. It’s not just about winning. It’s not just about preserving the rights of all women to control their own bodies. It’s about making cretins like Ted Cruz, Paul Gosar, and Marjorie Taylor Greene experience pain.
So let’s hang out here in the states and have some fun. Let’s pass out Plan B pills. Let’s host out-of-state women receiving reproductive care. Let’s give generously to Planned Parenthood. Let’s direct women in need to where concern for their lives is real. Let’s push for an end to the filibuster, codify reproductive rights, and flood the Supreme Court with justices who care about women. When it comes to the current fascist supermajority we will say good riddance.
Green Day rules. Your songs kick ass. You deliver lyrics worthy of Bob Dylan with the snarl of Billy Idol and the power chords of Johnny Ramone. And at the risk of being as rude as you so often and so endearingly are, the internet estimates your personal fortune at $75 million. That’s a lot of morning after pills. That’s a well equipped clinic or two in southwestern Illinois just over the river from Missouri. That’s a lot of air time in key midterm races: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Texas. You get the idea.
So to answer the punk question asked by another iconic rock band over a generation ago—should you stay or should you go—you should definitely stay. And make these assholes pay. Now that you’re like me, on the wrong side of 50, you have to answer more to your conscience than to your spleen. I know you’ll come around. It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right. I hope you have the time of your life.
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However, I now think it might now be time for Biden to step aside in 2024 and let some hungry Democrats have their shot. I don’t say this lightly, and I will of course get behind Biden should he decide to stay on. But perception in politics is everything, and the public is souring on Biden for reasons that are now out of his control.
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