Rewind: SEGUMUCA Nation Redux

2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the BilgeBucket Gazette. Our first issue was on May 19, 2003 and we’ve been shoveling it to the public, just like the corporate media, ever since. We changed our format to a WordPress blog in 2011 so all of our earlier material was archived. We’ve been reposting many of those archived articles, headlines, photo-toons, BilgeBucket Lists and other content over the past twelve years. In honor of our 20th, and because we’re sick of the current state of affairs in the world, we’ll be reposting more items from 2003 through 2009 throughout this year.

The big news this past week is all the nineteen defendants in Georgia’s RICO case have turned themselves in and had their thugshots taken including the head thug TFG, who predictably is trying to profit off of it by offering merchandise to grift his followers. It’s been a horrible eight years since TFG first came down the escalators to announce his candidacy and the American people’s sanity has gone down the drain because of him. The petulant, megalomaniacal man-child has dominated the corporate media because the corporate media loves him. Even liberal sites cover him because he boosts their ratings. If there’s one thing that has become self-evident during the Trump era is that greed, avarice, materialism, ratings, followers and likes are the most important things in the world now, which is probably why democracy is on the brink of destruction.

We’re reposting a photo-toon from our May 17, 2016 post where we lamented our predicament with candidate Trump and unfortunately things have worsened since then. Our analysis then still rings true today. Most Americans who have been raised on the belief that capitalism is the only sensible economy for this planet, look to the self-aggrandizing, megalomaniac billionaire, who has had three trophy wives and scores of material possessions like houses, cars, planes, etc… and say “Hey! I want to be like him.” That’s the American way.  Add to the fact that conservative evangelicals now view Trump as a better role model than Jesus and we’ve got a hell of a problem on our hands. So what do we do? We’ll just repeat our final paragraph from that post for simplicity’s sake.

We think it’s time that all Americans do a bit of self-introspection, especially conservatives. Conservatives generally don’t do this because in the conservative mindset, they are always right, hence no need to look at oneself in the mirror. Questioning your actions is bad and a sign of weakness. One must do what has been traditionally done forever and ever. And don’t even think of apologizing; that is absolute weakness and worthy of death. But is Donald Trump really who were are as a nation? Are we really like Trump? Are we a SEGUMUCA nation: a nation of Selfish, Egotistical, Greedy, Ultra-Materialistic, Ultra-Competitive Assholes? (Catchy eh?…[sound of crickets chirping]…hellllooooo) Isn’t it time we put the people’s health and welfare, the public good and the environment above profits and selfish, greedy materialistic desires? Maybe if we do that, we won’t look in the mirror, see Donald Trump snarling back and say to ourselves, “Holy Shit! How did we get so fugly!”

Uncle Sam recoils in horror as he looks in the mirror and sees that he has become a Selfish, Egotistical, Greedy, Ultra-Materialistic, Ultra-Competitive Asshole.
Uncle Sam recoils in horror as he looks in the mirror and sees that he has become a Selfish, Egotistical, Greedy, Ultra-Materialistic, Ultra-Competitive Asshole.

Let Them Eat Crudité

We take a brief detour from our coverage on Arizona’s insane GOP politicians to cover the unfortunate Senate campaign of one of Oprah’s creations, Dr. Mehmut Oz, who is running for Senator in Pennsylvania and is approved by TFG. We’ve commented before about this charlatan with a stethoscope when he famously said that children dying from COVID was acceptable during the pandemic in the summer of 2020. He’s already received tons of criticism for living in New Jersey and running in Pennsylvania. He’s also backed some sketchy health care solutions as well using his fame to push said products. But the bad doctor really stepped in some dog doo recently.

Well, Dr. Ooooze has been trying to convince people that he is an ‘everyman’ instead of a rich, spoiled hoidy-toid. First of all, he told people in an interview that he had only two houses to sound like a normal middle class American because doesn’t every American have two houses. LIE! LIE! LIE! LIE! LIE! He has at least ten properties, which certainly places him in an elitist category. One house is 9,000 square feet and another is 7,000 square feet! Who needs that much?! A greedy, materialistic, corporatist quack, that’s who. Next, Dr. Ooooze goes grocery shopping to complain about high prices and starts asking around for the crudité. Now we here at the Bucket didn’t know what the hell crudité was. Fortunately, Dr. Ooooze’s opponent Democrat John Fetterman trolled him royally by presenting a veggie tray. That’s right, folks. Crudité is just a fancy veggie tray. So much for the bad doctor being a regular guy. Like we’ve said before, Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil are Oprah’s two biggest mistakes. Hopefully, Pennsylvanians will realize what a huckster and clown Ooooze is and send him packing back to his real home in New Jersey or one of his other nine properties.

Overrated doctor and clown politician Dr. Mehmet Oz recently tried to show everyone what a regular guy he was by shopping for some crudité at his local grocers, while maybe adding some foie gras, pinot noir and Grey Poupon, of course.
Overrated doctor and clown politician Dr. Mehmet Oz recently tried to show everyone what a regular guy he was by shopping for some crudité at his local grocers, while maybe adding some foie gras, pinot noir and Grey Poupon, of course.

Soulless Capitalism

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently came under fire for stating that he won’t fact check political ads in the upcoming 2020 election thus clearing the way for possibly more election interference from foreign agents. The Mueller report clearly stated that dubious foreign entities played a part in the 2016 election by disseminating false information on social media sites and even hacking into some election systems in Florida. To her credit, Elizabeth Warren challenged Zuckerberg by purposely running a fake news ad on Facebook to draw attention to what a serious problem this is for democracy.

We shouldn’t be surprised though. We’ve commented before about how unregulated capitalism (a.k.a. no laws to check corporations or corporate power) breeds colossal amounts of greed, avarice, selfishness and corruption. We’ve become a SEGUMUCA nation. More people than ever are trying to get rich quick using whatever possible method, even if it’s illegal. Just watch some episodes of American Greed. It’s enough to make you sick. Capitalism is nothing more than indirect cannibalism.

So Mark Zuckerberg is no different than Donald Trump or any greedy capitalist serving in his administration(Wilbur Ross, Steve Mnuchin, etc…) or unethical Republican in the House or Senate who looks the other way while Trump commits crime after crime. They worship the almighty buck and will support all others with the same money-grubbing, materialistic mindset. These callous automatons are only interested in our data so they can make more money off of us schmucks in the middle class who do all the work. And right now, these greedy, soulless capitalists are in complete control of this nation.

Truth and justice don't matter to today's capitalists like Mark Zuckerberg; they're only interested in your data and your money.
Truth and justice don’t matter to today’s capitalists like Mark Zuckerberg; they’re only interested in your data and your money.

SEGUMUCA Nation

Well, the unthinkable has happened in America. What started out as a joke last June, has become a reality. Donald Trump has pretty much clinched the Republican Presidential nomination. Like other sane, reasonable folks, we’re completely surprised and a bit horrified at the ascendancy of this disingenuous, authoritarian megalomaniac. And naturally the blamestorming has commenced. Common scapegoats include the obvious choices like the Teabagger Republicans and corporate media. The Republicans have the gall to actually blame Obama. John Stewart has suggested it’s the Democrats. We here at the Bucket will go one better; we’re all to blame for this fiasco.

That’s right folks. Whether we want to admit it or not, we’re all responsible for Donald Trump because the orange rage monster is the epitome of capitalism run amok. We’ve commented before about the ugly predatory nature of unregulated capitalism.  Upton Sinclair documented it one hundred years ago in the book The Jungle and it still is applicable today. Trump has come to represent everything that capitalism holds dear; greed, avarice, egoism, ultra-competitiveness, selfishness and materialism. Most Americans who have been raised on the belief that capitalism is the only sensible economy for this planet, look to the self-aggrandizing, megalomaniac billionaire, who has had three trophy wives and scores of material possessions like houses, cars, planes, etc… and say “Hey! I want to be like him.” That’s the American way. The rich, greedy plutocrats dangle the carrot and the rest of us salivate and go after it. We’ve mentioned John Steinbeck’s quote about the poor seeing themselves as temporarily embarrasses millionaires instead of exploited grunts. These are Trump’s trumpeters; the temporarily embarrassed millionaires; and of course the plutocrats, like Sheldon Adelson, who will naturally support his fellow billionaire.

We here at the Bucket were kind of hoping that Bernie Sanders, the self proclaimed democratic socialist would have gotten the nomination. That would have made the election a referendum of sorts between democratic socialism against unregulated capitalism. According to polls, in a head to head showdown, Sanders thumps Trump.

We think it’s time that all Americans do a bit of self-introspection, especially conservatives. Conservatives generally don’t do this because in the conservative mindset, they are always right, hence no need to look at oneself in the mirror. Questioning your actions is bad and a sign of weakness. One must do what has been traditionally done forever and ever. And don’t even think of apologizing; that is absolute weakness and worthy of death. But is Donald Trump really who were are as a nation? Are we really like Trump? Are we a SEGUMUCA nation: a nation of Selfish, Egotistical, Greedy, Ultra-Materialistic, Ultra-Competitive Assholes? (Catchy eh?…[sound of crickets chirping]…hellllooooo) Isn’t it time we put the people’s health and welfare, the public good and the environment above profits and selfish, greedy materialistic desires? Maybe if we do that, we won’t look in the mirror, see Donald Trump snarling back and say to ourselves, “Holy Shit! How did we get so fugly!”

Uncle Sam recoils in horror as he looks in the mirror and sees that he has become a selfish, egotistical, greedy, ultra-materialistic, ulta-competitive asshole, a.k.a. Donald Trump.
Uncle Sam recoils in horror as he looks in the mirror and sees that he has become a Selfish, Egotistical, Greedy, Ultra-Materialistic, Ultra-Competitive Asshole.