If there was ever a moment designed to demonstrate how screwed up and screwed America is, we have arrived at that moment. Truthfully we’ve been idling here for some time, but it bears repeating loudly and often; It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way…. or does it?
We’re too exhausted to rehash why the country is on the Snowpiercer to hell; all we can do is whimper, “Hey dad are we there yet? And pray the answer is still no.” But let’s get one thing out in the open, there exists a group of subhumans in the US, along with an evil cabal abroad who have a very vested interest in our failure as a functioning democracy. Locally we can single out the obvious; Charles Koch, the Mercers, the Devoses, the Waltons, Mitch McConnell, all the Federalists and Neo-Liberals gavotting around the yacht club as we devolve into a feudal corporate state. We also owe our demise to the likes of Vladimir Putin, Russian oligarchs, the Chinese, the Saudis, and an international crime syndicate that is tentacled throughout the globe trafficking drugs, people, and arms, and summarily washing their billions through innumerable sketchy entities like Deutsche Bank and Trump, inc. Special mention goes to Mark Zuckerberg, unique in this circle of infamy not because he’s hell bent on our destruction, but the scope and legitimacy of his enterprise make it one of the most formidable weapons being used to undermine us. Also, he’s a giant douche*.
To digress for a sec, consider that this 36 year old scion of White Plains, NY, 5’7” in socks, controls the majority interest in a company that manages 2.2 BILLION people’s daily communication. If you were to watch a random video of him chillaxing with Pricilla and their cute kids, you’d logically assume that he is just another jerky nerd from Westchester who married a smart savvy doctor. But he’s not. Mark Zuckerberg is essentially a stratospheric puppet master algorithmically manipulating how the entire country, and world, thinks, acts, and votes. He has dedicated his short life to profit maximization; and we are the commodity he’s selling. Zuckerberg somehow managed to literally own all of us using a teensy picture of a blue thumb. And for some unknown reason (see above*) he has aligned himself on the dark side. I’d like to think; he’ll come around, he’s still pretty young. Only we don’t have the fucking time for Zuck to meet Jesus over a latte and atone for his sins.
Back to the point; So there are these evil forces intentionally raping and pillaging the United States with the GOP giddily opening the treasury for a vig, but why are the American people so doggone dumb, allowing this to happen In Plain Sight. Why are we so selfish, so demented, so irrational that we alone are facing the pandemic blind-folded and ass-backwards, on top of economic collapse, long overdue reckoning with police brutality, not to mention the election of our lifetimes. Why are we so utterly unable to Get Out of Our Own Way and Get Our Shit Together ?!
Here’s my take: It all boils down… all the way down to racism. We can’t think collectively for the common good because that would mean helping other people and baked into the American psyche, is that you are On Your Own. We can’t have the nice things other countries have because we are so virulently opposed to helping ‘them’, and by ‘them’ I mean poor people, and by poor people I mean Black people. Period. That’s the GD reason we have all of the fucked up systems we have and why nothing works to our benefit and why the country is failing. We can’t have federal mandated school policies or funding- that would send (theoretically) White people’s money to Black kids. We can’t have socialized medicine, White people would be saving Black people’s lives. Our deep DEEP roots in slavery and the festering malignant resentment that we abolished it allows racism to persist in many horrible forms right up to today. Right here, right now. You know why Germany or New Zealand work? Because Germans care about other Germans. Ditto Kiwis. Ditto France, South Korea, Denmark, Canada. Ditto every other first world nation. The countries that are doing the worst in terms of Coronavirus, are the ones that have extreme racism and staggering wealth inequality; Brazil and South Africa I’m looking at you, also India with its 3000 year old caste system and virulent anti-Islamism. However, alas, the US stands alone as the worst of the worst. Patriotism is supposed to include the entire nation, not just the people that look and sound exactly like you. We’re at the point where crossing state lines gives us the heebie jeebies. The thought of moving to a red state is a hard no for blue staters. Likewise Republicans would rather be Russian than Democrats. We’ve never been so divided yada yada yada. Witness the GOP presidential candidate running a white supremacy campaign, from The White House. Gun sales are soaring these past months, simultaneously Republican governors are ordering children back to school and have revoked mandatory mask wearing. How we get this under control before total collapse is anyone’s guess. Obviously, if Biden wins and we have a Congressional blue sweep that would be a good start, but on a macro-level, what’s next? It’s not like the GOP and their handlers will simply disappear to go loot some other country. And if Biden loses…….well……
Maybe because we held this vision of ourselves as the shining beacon of democratic achievement and intelligence, you know since that’s been drummed into our brains from birth. But the scales have been ripped from our eyes. And it ain’t pretty. In fact it’s coyote ugly. I feel like we are breaking up with ourselves; who we thought we were. But the old, ‘it’s not you it’s me’, doesn’t make any sense. It hurts. We’re mad. And we’re scared. And at the very core of all this suspicion and hatred is racism. (I realize that Black Americans have been saying this for decades). We should be called America the Dumb-ass. Gonna let donald john trump and his posse tear it all apart just because some of you hate Black folks? Who, FYI, were here from the git go and built your entire country. The worlds isn’t watching us shaking their heads in horror because we are Florida man, rather because we are Richmond, Virginia 1865.
One time I made a typo, and the words "United States" came out as "Untied States". :). As in, they are not tied together, they are "un-tied" :)