31 Comments
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Openly Fae's avatar

I actually avoided reading this hoping that humanity will be wiped out. That's where I'm at today.

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Walter Rhein's avatar

It's hard to write satire these days

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Greg Sanford's avatar

This was not satire

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Walter Rhein's avatar

yeah... I guess that's true

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Angela Meyer's avatar

Like Jim Jones, he doesn’t want to die alone.

Remember Jonestown? We all live there now.

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jtolbertjr's avatar

I struggle with reality keeping in mind what Issac Asimov said: "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'

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Walter Rhein's avatar

Yes, the truth in that quote only becomes more and more obvious. Thanks for the comment!

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Linda Tuininga's avatar

Hello Walter, I’ve been lying low, but as always reading….Your writing has been a welcome break from my disillusionment, disgust, and despair, but you’ve managed to shock me, like with cardiac paddles, back to life.

Your TRUE SATIRE piece is exactly what I needed to read, you took the dreadful thoughts in my head and wrote them all down, line by line of truth as satire, magnificently delivered by Goofy and the Beast of the Apocalypse.

We all love Goofy, his “present moment” consciousness is always soothing, especially when “before and after” are too painful and confounding to consider. But your new “star” is unexpected. Who could imagine that the biblical “beast of the end times,” would be an unearthly orange-skinned creature with a bleached blond thatch of molded fur on his head. This unseemly beast doesn’t roar, instead he whines, complains, and accuses with an unbearable and inescapable insistence.

The beast finds fault in all things and people and nothing or anyone is exempt from his cruel appetite and predatory drive. He craves attention and will suck the life out of a room in order to be the only entity to grab the focus of those who cannot look away.

There are only two ways this coming apocalypse can end. And in both scenarios the beast will die.

The most likely outcome is the orange beast will die at the hands of his successors (beware of the rising oligarchs! Et Tu Brute’)

The other option is that the multitudes watching this horror cartoon decide that a lying, corrupting, humanity-hating, orange beast of a small minded caricature of a “man” is no longer worth our interest, anxiety, and absolutely not worthy of anyone’s loyalty—without the fuel of attention and the chaos-generated energy of fear the beast spreads, he will collapse into a pile of heaving orange flesh, quite possibly dissolving into a grease slick that people step around until the crime scene unit arrives to collect the oily evidence and clean up the scene of the crime.

Either way we still have problems to solve, the oligarchs will need to be vanquished, but if Elon stays in charge they will all lose their billions to his hugely over-sized ego and his pitifully undersized intelligence. And if the orange beast of the apocalypse actually melts away, his true-life story of hatred, cruelty, pathological insecurity and incompetency in all of his thoughts and deeds will need to be made into a feature-length documentary—promoted world-wide to inform and inspire the remaining and future generations of humanity that evolution is not an option, it is an imperative to survival of humanity and the earth itself.

Whoever produces this dramatic project will be rewarded by forestalling an apocalypse…at least until the next beast arrives on the scene.

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Walter Rhein's avatar

However it ends, I'm ready for the next chapter! Thanks for the kind comment Linda!

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Linda Tuininga's avatar

Loved your post, it was just what I needed, scathing political/cultural satire delivered by Goofy.

As Pink Floyd said, “It All Makes Perfect Sense….”

I’ll be updating my subscription with you, thanks for the resuscitation. lol😎✌️

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Radha Nichole Smith's avatar

Your note to Walter struck chords within me, Linda. I thought of Bill Yeats watching in his mind’s eye that rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem to be born. He may have thought it was Hitler when he wrote that. Or perhaps that it was Stalin, Churchill or FDR.

But, now we know that the egg and sperm in Fred and Mo Trump were positioning themselves to combine and lay the groundwork for what has become Donald the Antichrist. Which is,of course, why these goddamned evangelical maniacs love him so. The Christ of the Golden and Silver Talents.

Surely there must be a church called Chapel Perilous that’s been dedicated to such a divinity - the divinity who like Moloch raises his weary adherents up into the clouds in order to crash them down on Earth the Mother, in order to entertain himself with guessing what the crimson Rorschach patterns on the ground actually represent.

The Chapel Perilous of The Christ of the Golden and Silver Talents that stands at the corner of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, an altar to sleaze and cupidity like nothing before it!

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Linda Tuininga's avatar

Trump did say, “I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes.” Sounds like your intersection.

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Radha Nichole Smith's avatar

Hopefully someone has told him that others who dislike him may have guns like Luigi Mangione. Or perhaps an unforeseen wishbone arrive at his epiglottis at an auspicious moment.

Not on Fifth Avenue at all, but in his bathroom at Maralago.

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David Perlmutter's avatar

Trump got elected by deceiving all the Goofys in America, who should have known better.

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Larry Bushard's avatar

All the “christian” religions believe in the rapture. They have found the fool who will expedite the “End Times” for them. We have likely passed the climate change tipping point and all that bloated yam keeps saying is “drill, baby, drill”!

And Senator Foolerman from PA is reluctant to shut down the government.

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Walter Rhein's avatar

Yeah, the PA senator's response has been deeply troubling

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Greg Sanford's avatar

I'd rather be reading about your dog,snow, kids and wife than this Truth bullshit. Yes, I agree, catastrophee. Where do I send my meager pennies leftover from grocery shopping to help? Will my SS check arrive? Where's the cheapest gas?

Will the disaffected military step up and send this Thug to Moscow?

Now it's too unsafe to move to Canada, Mexico or Panama. They hate us and our dollars. I will awake from this bad dream someday, somewhere and be ready to fight

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Walter Rhein's avatar

I'll provide more of that content Greg! Yeah, the truth bullshit gets to me too. This was just a response.

I haven't been posting enough to my "fiction" section. Maybe that's what I'll use it for in the future. Thanks for the reminder that I need to give people a break every now and then!

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Elaine's avatar

What's the latest on the comet?

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Walter Rhein's avatar

It can't come soon enough!

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Timothy Ross's avatar

Well now that was some great satire!

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Caryl Swift's avatar

Is it satire? Or bordeline hard reality?

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Nancy Pearson's avatar

What borderline?

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Caryl Swift's avatar

I meant - on the border between truth and satire.

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Walter Rhein's avatar

Thanks!

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Sylvania Sage's avatar

I am getting Jimmy Jones vibes with a side of Charlie Manson’s word salad from He Who Will Not Face Consequences. Plenty of Goofy but some are waking up I hope? Needed to laugh. Thank you.

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Brenda's avatar

Walter, I hear you however I must say something. There are individuals who feel the worst of what you have written, satire I believe, will/may not be picked up by tide individuals. A small believed push can cause a death. Surely that is not your intent but as a writer to the masses, there comes a responsibility to either begin or end such a composition with definitive information stating your intent. We are not all the same inside or out. Thank you for your consideration.

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Walter Rhein's avatar

I'm not sure I get your meaning. What's your specific area of concern? Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I will think about what you have to say, I just need a little more information.

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Brenda's avatar

Simply put new readers of Substack would have thought your article believable. Losing all hope and some would consider suicide. When writing satire, I believe it would be nice to make a statement to that effect.

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Walter Rhein's avatar

I don't agree with that assessment at all.

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Nancy Pearson's avatar

I finally heard the question asked ?&?answered I’ve had in my mind ~ are there more deadly drugs coming from Mexico or Canada? Since trump throws around lies like facts & the news becomes more questions than news ~

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