I Don’t give a Damn About Gabby Petito and Neither Should You
By
David Gottfried
For days, the media, dedicated to embalming your grey matter in a mixture composed of equal parts coca cola, the saliva of smarmy Southern preachers, and the bilious spittle of Trump supporters, has been screaming, morning, noon and night, about Gabby Petito.
Apparently, the pretty white girl got killed. Apparently, she got into arguments with her fiancé, and a police officer said she cried. (Of course, no one ever gets into arguments with their fiancé or cries.) Of course, no one ever gets killed. (Unless one is one of the more than 2000 people who got killed in New York City in 1989 alone – ah but the media knows that people who live in tenements and don’t have lustrous blonde hair don’t count)
So why is Gabby Petito’s death so important. Did she have conclusive proof that Trump was responsible for the Capital Hill Riot. Of course, we all know that Trump is guilty (Hell, Rudy Il Duce Guiliani said, at the rally that immediately preceded the riot, that it was time to launch “trial by combat”) Ah, but when the left tries to get relief or action from Congress or the Courts, it is a lot like Dorothy going to the Wizard of Oz. Just as the Wizard always demands that Dorothy perform more dangerous and arduous tasks, the law always moves the goal post further and further away. What do you think Republican election “reform” is all about. It is not enough for the left to win an election, now they have to win by hefty margins. Very simply, the electoral college, the filibuster rule requiring a vote of 60 ayes in the Senate to get legislation passed, rampant Gerrymandering, providing one ballot box for half a million people in Houston while giving white republican areas lots of places to vote (Hell this has always gone on. In every presidential election for the past 20 years, people in Democratic Cleveland waited up to 5 hours to vote and in la di da lily white suburbs they wait 10 minutes to vote), prove that Democracy is a very bad joke.
But back to Gabby Petito: Why is her death so important? Did she have the power or the knowledge or the ability to create or to end terrorism ? Did her dizzy, cutesy brain contain insights that could address income and wealth inequality ? Can she cure muscular dystrophy or did this attention-deficit riddled country conclude that it was high time we forget about muscular dystrophy because Jerry Lewis isn’t around to remind us of the malady.
(This reminds me: I knew a female attorney who told me, in utter seriousness, in 1988, that AIDS was no longer such a big problem. I asked her why. That moronic, oversized. stupid little girl said, “Well, I don’t know, but I remember a few years ago everybody was talking about Rock Hudson --- and he was sooooo cute – and they all said it was so terrible that he was a faggot who dropped dead, but now I don’t hear them talk about AIDS when I watch the news on TV so I guess AIDS is okay now.” )
A little while ago, many people were upset about the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. A little while ago, people were engrossed in Biden’s program to bolster the economy. A little while ago, people were concerned about what appear to be intractable racial conflicts. But people can’t remember an issue for more than a week or two. Hell, campaign managers always implore their candidates to keep it stupid and simple and to always “stay on message.” By staying on message, that means reiterating the same simple idiotic bullshit for up to a year.
A couple of days ago, Congress was treated to riveting testimony from Frances Haugen who expertly skewered Facebook and social media moguls for warping the American psyche, for increasing violence (Airline stewards attacked for asking people to wear a mask), for mangling our politics (electing Mafia Don Donald Trump in 2016), for increasing suicides (Millions of people are severely withdrawn, looking at gorgeous photoshopped pics all day long, utterly convinced that they are too ugly to ever find love.) The biggest winners in this vulgar, disgusting era have been Mark Zuckerberg, Donald Trump, sellers of pornographic underwear, and slimy, felonious plastic surgeons, the richest and most unnecessary doctors in America.
But most people forgot about that testimony about Facebook. They are too busy watching “the news” so they can chew on more titillating trash about Gabby Petito or any one of a number of media black holes that suck people up never to be heard from again. They chew on the same garbage so much they are like cows chewing their cud.
They remind me of an old poem I wrote. It ain’t brilliant, it’s not very imaginative, but it stings like a bee and like Muhammed Ali, I want to sting like a bee:
Erupted in my mind while confronting fat women in a supermarket
By
David Gottfried
The Common People Know Nothing (Footnote 1)
Not Shakespeare, not Whitman, not Cromwell not Poe
It's high time you realize they're dumb as a doe
They dilly, they dather, they disco around
Never they tire of the same sordid sound
They're fat and they're stupid and coarse and grotesque
Dream diet plans so they'll be statuesque
While reading the Enquirer with hands on fat hips
They salivate for scandal and move their red lips
Damned be the budget, Bosnia or the poor
They simply marvel at Kennedy's new whore
They bitch like a witch and they gossip all day
And wonder which artists and poets are gay
Copyright, David Gottfried, 1995
Footnote 1: I fell in love with the phrase “The Common People Know Nothing” when I heard it uttered by the angry old intellectual in the film adaptation of “A Clockwork Orange.” The movie has all the tartness of Mick Jagger’s voice in “19th Nervous Breakdown,” ten times the sexual tartiness of the sexiest bitches on the internet, and is as raw and as ribald as Steak Tartare.