Welcome…. why are you here?
There are three things that I am going to talk about, in this safe little blog space. It is the perfect little digital coffee shop (minus the coffee) where we can have an actual discussion. Please, leave as many comments as you like. We can go back and forth. I would much rather take the time to talk to you, in my little digital domain, than go back and forth on Twitter or Facebook.
Wouldn’t it be amazing, if somehow some milk-like cortical fluid dripped out of my brain and passed through my hands, into the part of your brain that goes “Hey, this is something that will affect you today?” It probably won’t happen, but if you ever do share one of these posts with another person, well, then I think that might the the greatest thing that could happen to me.
Hey, let’s get to those three things:
- I will review comic book trades and novels. I call them comic book trades, not graphic novels. None of that pretentious shit here, in my little HTML cafe. If I ever do read an actual graphic novel like, I don’t know, Maus or Brian K Vaughn’s Pride, I will make sure to call it what it is- a graphic novel, but I am just going to be honest with you- I don’t read graphic novels. I read a shit ton of comic books. I am lucky if I get through five or six actual novels in a year.
- I will express my political beliefs. Whoa! It feels so liberating to write that out on here. I have been a coward since shortly after Trump took office. At first, I tried to rally the liberal troops around me. I sought out my closest friends, who are actually politically active, and shared a manifesto with them. I might post that on here, just to see what y’all think. The group I created, via Whatsapp went about as far as “Hey, you know they are doing things like this at Pantsuit Nation”, and thus ended the Marsh uprising. It was all my fault.
- I will post actual prose excerpts, when I actually generate some prose excerpts. I have big plans, but nothing to show for it, yet.
Which of these three things will I do today? We might as well get to the most controversial of the three - My political beliefs. This could be our dry run, right now. Let’s see if you and I are a good fit. Below is a little rant I let out on Twitter. I am so bad at using Twitter, it's embarrassing. Your grandmother tweets better than I do. From now on, I am just going to rant on here, and link it to my twitter feed. Here is the rant, after I cleaned it up a bit:
#MEGATRUMPMUSTBESTOPPEDNOMATTERTHECOST
I hate the screaming about politics into the void that is Twitter and Facebook, but I just can't take it anymore. I spent the last year and a half not expressing my political beliefs, because I felt like all people do on Social Media is complain about the hypocrisy of the Republicans.
It never goes past that point. I am worried that pointing that out would get me on a list. You know what kind of list I am talking about, right? That same list you get put on, when you take out the Anarchist’s Cookbook from your local library.
What is so controversial about saying that the only action the majority of us take is post about the hypocrisy of the Republican party?
Nothing, really. I do want to go a little further, though. The posts that you do not see as regularly are the ones that point out what is being done in the background, while we are all screaming about what is being shown to us in the foreground.
The recent controversy has been around the separation of immigrant children from their parents. It is inhumane. It is ugly as hell, and it needs to be stopped. Though I do feel like the ultimate goal of this legislature is to take the focus off our ire. While we are focusing all of our energy on comparing Trump and co. to Nazis, they are slowly and methodically reducing the funding for programs that help the physically and mentally ill. The changes they are making are taking away the very things that people travel this country, illegally and legally, for. Everything that we have taken for granted as Americans, at least as long as I have been alive, they are chipping away at. It will only be easy for those that have the money to afford it.
I think when people urge you to look beyond the smoke screen, to look at the man behind the curtain, those are the people that are going to get targets on their backs.
The first lady wore an incredibly insensitive jacket to visit the centers where they are keeping children in cages? It is un-fucking-believable that is even a thing that we are talking about, in reality, yet it is just a diversion. This is the person screaming curses in your face, while their friend is picking your wallet out of your back pocket.
It's a brilliant trap. Decent, humane, well-read people are rightfully pissed off beyond reason at the incredible bullshit that we are being exposed to on a daily basis. It makes us furious, but none of us want a violent revolution, or a civil war. Conservatives versus Liberals. Republicans versus Democrats. No one wants the physical end result of a true battle between these polarized sides. This state of not knowing what action to truly take leads to taking the simplest of actions- complain about the state of the world on Facebook or Twitter.
I do think the force we call “Trump” is really just his face, his twitter account and a think tank of individuals that are looking for what will upset the caring masses. He is their willing puppet, that spews out whatever trash, or signs whatever policy to draw the public’s focus and attention. This group that writes for “Trump” knows exactly what to tweet, to stir a reaction. Then we get on our phones, and we tweet about the hypocrisy.
Some people actually take action, they put their money, their mouths, their souls to work, fighting against these corporate oath brutes, who must truly be the ones calling the shots. They wish they were as clever as the villains, writers and filmmakers have created that represent the heartless businessman.
I have seen these smug bullies that think they can look down on the rest of the world, just because they can afford the biggest name brands. I grew up with them, in the most conservative and close minded borough of New York. Luckily, for most of my life there was this unspoken observer, some kind of force that kept them in check. A conscience, that kept things in line. Maybe it was the way American culture viewed itself.
There was something that kept us all in check, before we became imbalanced. Whatever it was, it started to disappear after 9/11. In the nineties, during my teenage years and the first few years of my twenties we felt so safe and secure from outside threats, that we started to look closely at our own devils. The 90s were this great time where our music, movies, and television was filled with questioning individuals. American Beauty, The Matrix, Fight Club these movies all came out within a handful of months. These were movies that asked you to “Look closer”, to try and determine what reality was. Was our reality just a construct put in place to keep us all content as willing slaves? Did commercialism leave us expecting that all we needed out of life was corporate products? We began asking these questions, and luckily we had bands like Rage Against the Machine, who had spurred us on, from years ago, and we knew we were on the right path. Look behind the Smoke screen, look for the man behind the curtain. Hell, we still had Bill Hicks at the beginning of the nineties, Chris Rock was still relevant, George Carlin was alive all the way into the 2000s. We had people, forces out their telling us all to read books, question authority, to not accept the status quo.
There are no movies like American Beauty, the Matrix, and Fight Club. There is no mainstream band like Rage Against the Machine, and the only stand up comedian that swam in the same waters as Carlin, Rock and Hicks- Louis C.K. is a disgraced sex offender. No one notable is telling us to look past the smoke screen. No one is telling us to look for the man behind the curtain, and that fucking curtain is blinding, with a strobe effect and full of subliminal messages
I am going to try my very best to reclaim who I was back in the 90s. It would be amazing if others in my generation were able to do so.
I was so worried about upsetting family members and friends, who disagreed. But now, I realize that I was being a coward. The friends who truly matter will always be my friends, no matter my political beliefs. Those that won't get past that, are not worth it. I also worried about the safety of my children. By sharing my views, I might put myself on the kind of list where those that are on it just disappear. I might jeopardize my future employment. Living in this fear kept me from expressing my beliefs to anyone but a few close peers, or my wife. I think I told about five people how I truly felt, and that is it.
Sure, this little rant was rather vague. The only concrete message you can take from it is - I am sick of the status quo, but I don’t want to spend my time posting other people’s articles about the hypocrisy of the Republican Party. I want to learn more. I want to find others that really want to fight. That monster has been with us, since well before I was born. They compare the Republicans to Nazis, but they are not Nazis. The Nazis worked towards the destiny of an Aryan Race ruling the world. These bastards are not going to start exterminating people in camps. They are just going to let us die off because we will eventually not be able to live in the world that they have allowed us all to pollute to hell. They are not going to be as direct as Nazis, they are just going to be sneaky, spineless business men, that hide behind their parrot. Do we spend the next six years complaining about what he says, or do we figure out exactly what we need to do to bring this world back from the edge?
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