Warning 2021

 Good day, World.

     Just today, I read several posts on social media that depicted a Republican backlash to the current waves of reform that have been occurring across both the internet and the country. Many on the Right are now decrying censorship, their figureheads and rantings removed not only from power but from their usual sounding boards. Even their alternative social media platform has been extinguished for the present, and it seems that the most extreme elements of their cadre are being muzzled on more conventional ones. In non-digital life, the terrorists that attacked the Capitol are being routed by the FBI, aided greatly by the general populous' willingness to surrender insurrectionists to the Federal government. I've seen cries of leftist treachery, accusations of deep state machinations to enslave the public, and even Holocaust comparisons at their most hyperbolic. There was a festering pustule that has just been excised from America's body, and it seems that the Republicans are the flesh that was most closely affected. Now, they are irritated, weeping blood, and looking for someone to blame for the problems that they created, be it man, woman, Devil, or Ruth Bader-Ginsberg in her coffin.

     There is a humor to all of this. The same party of people who rail against things like hip hop, rock and roll, witchcraft, marijuana, same sex marriage, saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," raising the minimum wage, abortions, and anything else that may offend the Fox News crowd...are mad about censorship. These are the same people who bought and burned piles of Eminem CDs in protest, the same ones who constantly talk about boycotting any company that shows the thinnest amount of support to the LGBT community. These people tell others every day that certain demographics shouldn't exist or aren't real, that their fellow Americans are hellbent on destroying the country, or that minority concerns are invalid or wouldn't exist if said minorities were more obedient. To hear them whining like the snowflakes that they are when they practically invented cancel culture is a bittersweet irony. Remember the Moral Majority?

      So, what do we do here on the Left? It seems that the Redcaps are attempting to reconstitute themselves into a separate political party: the MAGA Party. You can imagine that this would be a place for Trump and his family to always have some sort of political relevance, using the party to install leaders on lower levels of government in cities where Trumpism still runs rampant. The fact that they would not be a part of our unofficial two party system would help cut the legs off of their abilities on a broad scale, but I expect to see MAGA towns popping up throughout the Midwest, South, and high North. The one thing the Right has over the Left most often is their ability to strategize and manipulate the playing field. What can the liberals do in order to negate the inherent power of these Trumpublicans?

     The answer lies directly in flipping local municipalities to Blue. See, as we witness the logjam that is the Senatorial and Congressional process on various issues, we are beginning to see the importance of the individual roles of Senators and Congressmen. Mitch McConnell has made certain things an utter nightmare for the entirety of the country, singlehandedly blocking a direct vote by the Senate to dole out much needed bailout money whilst apparently forgetting who pays for his salary and health benefits.  Well, there are a lot of local level officials that hold significant amounts of power over other key decisions and issues. Many individuals run completely unopposed in those places, complacency placating them into a feeling of security in their position. For example, the self-styled, self-titled "anarchist She-male" Aria DiMezzo ran unopposed as a Republican for Cheshire County, NH sheriff, winning the primary and getting over seven thousand votes compared to the incumbent's twenty seven thousand. While she lost, that was quite a voting bloc, and perhaps in the future she may actually be elected in some capacity. These are the moves the Left needs to continue making in order to attain more power, to find holes and penetrate them in order to crack the foundations of the establishment. The more Blue the leadership of a city, town, municipality, or organization is, the more likely it is that the "liberal agenda" can be forwarded to higher echelons of power. 

      There will be a war coming, but it will be an internal cold war. Towns where Trumpism runs roughshod will deepen in their resolve, and if Trump himself gets either impeached so that he cannot run again or is imprisoned, those towns will be powder kegs. Expect some sort of quasi-secession in a rural area, a bandying together of some rich Right Wing Trumpist, preppers, private military contractors, and gun "enthusiasts" declaring some sort of free state. Now, no one will attack that place due to the amount of rich white males and guns on the property, the Right will make comparisons to the autonomous zones that the Left has established, and eventually a secessionist army will develop calling itself a "millitia." The very key difference between the autonomous zones and this new thing is that this will be a white supremacist training/breeding ground fed by a lot of alt-Right money and nutjobs. These predictions are based upon activities I have seen extremists perform in the past, and one cannot call the Redcaps anything but that given that they have now tipped their own hand.

Do not misunderstand me. This is a direct comparison to Nazism. They are that dangerous, and I am worried for the safety of my family. Liberals and centrists, it is your job to combat these people as they appear in your spheres of government. Research ballot measures that appear in your state, county, and local levels to be sure that the far Right's agendas do not silently take over. Check the histories of the people writing the bills, politicians, and judges in your area so you know where their values lie rather than just listening to slogans. Hold local officials and police accountable for their negative actions. Remember, every politician will pretend to want the best for you in order to get into power, but not every politician has the best interest of the people at heart. 

 

On Civil Unrest in America

 Good day, World.

    Well. Here we are, folks. The Redcaps have shown their true colors, their failed coup the result of years of incendiary thoughts. They have been emboldened by watching protesters who rage against injustice, perverting the passion into the violence they've wished to engender this entire time. They hate that Obama's right hand man has been reinstalled, their love for the new Mussolini trumping their desire to be decent human beings tenfold. Trump has become exactly what he's been striving to be all this time: the next charisma vacuum to the alt-Right. The next great dictator is strutting his stuff, and all the king's horses and all the king's men have rolled out the carpet for Drumphy again.

     The telltale signs are more subtle, but this is a precarious position we have been put in. For example, when the National Guard was called in to dispatch the traitors who were actively attempting to subvert the processes of our government within the nation's capital, the Guard refused. Local authorities simply escorted the vast majority off the property, with very few casualties and far less force than, say, your average Black Lives Matter protest. Actual traitors were seen taking photos with the local police forces, the silent show of solidarity between the two factions saying more than any words could elaborate. Oddly enough, when angry white people show up with guns, no one seems to escalate like they do with minorities and protesters, as in 2016 with the Bundy armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. In short, when the white majority erupts into violence and barbarism over trivialities, it's not taken as seriously as non-violent people who wish to hold the government and society accountable for the injustices they perpetrate towards minorities. 

     And I do say trivialities with the entire weight of the word. When Trump won, the Left was told to hold their tongues by the Right, to "shut up and accept" that Agent Orange had been victorious. On the whole, the Left did just that, a smattering of "Not My President" bumper stickers and snarky late night comedy bits being the entirety of the protest made. However, now that Biden won, the Right's vitriol has boiled over and spilled into the halls of our government. The Confederate flag was flown in the Capitol that was built by the slaves who would fear it if they could see the future. Between the legislators who sided with him, the lies dripping from his mind through his clumsy thumbs, and the cacophony of Redcaps that clamor for him, we have seen the rise of a new terrorist group driven to madness. An election only establishes a figurehead, and so they commit treason over a fairly minor event. The Senate and Congress are the real decision makers, as seen while Obama was in office and had the vast majority of his moves deadlocked.

     The future holds some worry for me, as I am tracking a pattern and do not like it. For example, a lot of people do not realize that Hitler was elected to power at first. He was made  chancellor of Germany in January of 1933, then used the laws to maneuver himself into a dictator after a long history of using his charisma to appeal to the public. He used fear tactics and racist rhetoric to convince people that foreigners were the center of all of Germany's problems, spinning quasi-logic from drug addled mental episodes and vomiting it at a populace looking for answers. He took over the news media, creating an entire wing of the government in order to create and test propaganda in order to spark loyalty in his subjects. The people, desperate and angry, clung to this in spite of all logic, with 77,000 German citizens dying over the course of his reign due to dissent from this barbarism and millions more directly as a result. Meanwhile, the Nazi officers in their Hugo Boss uniforms stood neatly by, the mass genocide they helped orchestrate a daily chore for them, a simple meal on a plate.  

     Now, here we are in 2021. A fascist has been elected to power, his followers rabidly in support of him despite himself. The man himself has made overtures to other dictators, the oil barons of the Middle East, and white supremacist factions domestically. We have had our Beer Hall Putsch, the failed coup d'etat of a couple days ago serving as a preamble to what is certainly going to lead to worse things. Hate crimes against minorities have increased under his regime, the backlash to LGBT and racial groups asking for respect and fair treatment resulting in shootings, murders, and outright terrorism against said groups by the Redcaps. The people have clung to his words in a time of economic uncertainty and racial tension, and South and Central American immigrants looking for asylum have become the people in cages that the Jews and other minorities were in Germany. Let us not also forget the eternal war of the disenfranchised, the steady vacuuming up of minorities by the criminal justice system in order to fill private prisons and give businesses a cheap labor force. Trump holds rallies where he lies and whips crowds into a frenzy, allegedly studying from the actual speeches of Mussolini in his spare time to prepare. He has expressed great interest in changing laws in order to extend his reign since the very beginning of his tenure, and has managed to secure several news channels in order to spout his and others' far-Right propaganda as truth, not opinion. Independently, his followers mobilize and commit violence in his name, spewing poison and demonizing the victims as they make life more unbearable for those who think differently. 

The uniform has changed, but the ideals remain. 

     

     Reader, I will reveal something to you about myself (if you have not already gathered): I am a minority. I actively fear for my safety as I have heard awful things said directly to me about my specific minority, as well as having heard candid recordings from those who are exposed to this vitriol but have no other recourse but to expose it to the public. I fear for the future, the safety of myself and my family, and the direction this country is headed in. As a child, I saw the destruction of the Twin Towers, having lived within an hour of New York City by train and having relatives who lived in the area. The sight of the pillars of smoke billowing upward through my father's car window as we drove through the Meadowlands was sobering, and I would not have been anywhere near as politically minded if that hadn't happened during my formative years as a preteen. Now that I am in my thirties, I have watched the country fall from grace on the world stage, slowly descending into chaos as greed and racism drive this place into a more divided state than I have ever seen. I fear for the future, and I am too poor to either distance myself from it or leave here during this civil unrest. 

Either we fight this timeline or we die. We cannot lose ourselves to this. 

Escapism

 Good day, World.

     One of the greatest financial establishments in the modern world is the industry of escapism. While this multifaceted economic concept has several methods of implementation, they all strive to achieve the same purpose: make huge profits off of distracting the public from reality. From this, we see the film industry, record labels, vacation package companies, technology conglomerates, international sports leagues, alcohol producers, and various other industries built with this singular purpose. Of course, there are sections of many of these same sectors of business that attempt to augment rather than distort or obfuscate, but oftentimes these comparably small endeavors are either corrupted or altogether subsumed by larger companies that utilize them for their own purposes. In short, escaping reality is big money and has been for a very long time. 

     The main selling point of these commodities is to distract from the crushing grip of a nigh-feudal level of living that many of those same industries help to create. Nestle pumps water out of areas that need it desperately, ruining ecosystems and causing droughts to water tables around the world while selling "Pure Life" water. Chocolatiers use child slaves to gather their cocoa beans in desperate countries, marketing the fruit of their labor as things like "bliss" and "heaven" while putting actual children through hell. Workers in third world countries manufacture promotional materials for multi-million dollar movies, flights of fancy and spectacle insultingly thrust into their faces as the whip cracks behind them to work faster and do more. Even the companies that Americans work for market their products as silver bullets toward happiness, their own workers tired and struggling as the price of existence is steadily inflated to a staggering amount above what the average American can make. If the people were allowed to think instead of the constant push to consume, they would be too angry to continue making money off of, after all. Wear this brand, eat from this restaurant, drive this car, and listen to this artist. Happiness comes from never thinking and always doing.

     Unfortunately, this formula seems to work for many, choosing to immerse themselves in whatever fiction they deem appropriate rather than learn of anything past what they are told to. People erupt into violent conflict over sports teams that know nothing of their lives, and even scripted contests like the WWE have caused fanatics to riot. Followers get genuinely upset over changes in writing styles, film adaptations, and fictional characters, their emotional investment wasted on something that is not real and has no actual effect on them. Listeners become bitterly embroiled in the lives of the artists they listen to rather than taking their music at face value, and some artists have lost their lives behind the misplaced emotional turmoil of a crazed fan. There is no logic to what people find themselves passionate about, but when said passion is directed at something completely meaningless, it has been co-opted by some corporation in order to profit. 

     While I know time is meaningless, in this new year I am asking those reading to consider that. There are so many exciting events happening, so many people with real, inspiring stories to learn about, and so many new advancements pushing forward that can be paid attention to. Do not waste your emotions on fiction, as we need more people who deeply care about real life in order to help progress ourselves to a better future. Fiction is made to sedate and distract, to rob us of our emotions in order to manipulate our money out of our hands. It's like cartoons from the 80's and 90's: created with the specific purpose of selling toys. The cartoons were simply an advertisement that they knew would end up causing the children to essentially annoy the money out of their parents' pockets. 

Well, we're all adults now.