Groups of people took surveys, had conversations, and drafted reports for months in a “liberal” city, and one white man’s rant was enough to destroy all of our work. The voting machines are defaulting people to different votes, but because some idiots were told that they would get $5k, none of them are saying anything. Candidates are getting sexually assaulted on the campaign trails, and people are still questioning “what really happened.” Soldiers are being sent to the ballot boxes, and people are still acting like nonviolent protests are accomplishing anything other than yelling at the monsters. When are people going to learn that the rules are irrelevant if players decide to cheat? We are not going to develop any sort of functioning world while continuing to give the benefit of the doubt to people who are dishonest.
For centuries, there have been individuals pointing out the hypocrisy of the dominant narrative and explaining that there is nothing sacred about a government that harms. However, if a critical mass of a population is comfortable, that mass will ignore how the system works until the problems show up right at its doorstep. Frederick Douglass asked about what “freedom” was supposed to mean in 1852, and there were even more slave narratives before that speech ever hit the press. What people are finally realizing is that people in power never played by the rules, but most of the population ignored the ones calling it out, and now everyone believes that there is “strength” in calling out the truth, even when people knew.
Nostalgia is a powerful tool in protecting the image of goodness from the behavior of the wicked, which is one of the reasons that broken systems focus on the good times and happiness instead of the honesty of the dysfunction. No one ever lived like the sitcoms of the 1950s, but people need to believe that it was a real time and place that could be possible, regardless of the evidence to the contrary. For decades, people in power have projected an image of the past that they would never follow, including equal pay and opportunity for the majority of the population. It is just now that people recognize that the only people still playing by those rules are the targets, who still believe that “hard work” and “sacrifice” equal prosperity.
Continuing to tell everyone to go to college when jobs are disappearing is to accept horrible advice. Encouraging people to buy houses during inflated markets and wage stagnation is chaining people to inanimate objects by tempting people with “equity.” Telling everyone about blue-collar wealth earned more than a decade ago is wildly insecure. None of those systems translate to financial stability when one is starting out at this point in time, but instead of recognizing reality, folks keep insisting on projecting their past realities on others who have no hope of emulation. Saving the image and reputation of broken systems makes people look like clowns, not citizens.
My question is this: what happened to the people who could disrupt systems? There used to be hackers who did things other than try to scam money, but I guess they all went broke because I barely hear about them. I thought folks were working on a national strike, but I guess that it would have taken more direct communication and/or mutual aide networks, and we still have too many comfortable people. The rest of the world is protesting and setting establishments on fire, and imperial residents are still talking about “blue waves” and “put them in prison,” as if any of those suggestions have actually worked. Having done some mutual aide and worked in policy, I am tired of people believing in trash despite seeing results, and refusing to evolve.
Imperial residents are still trying to party (protest), vote, and go home to Netflix, but that is not the way to solve any of the problems happening with the empire. At some point, comfortable people are going to need to come up with methods that cost them something, take something out of them, and pour into others that have been deprived. Pretending that cheaters are going to suddenly develop morals–or even adhere to the morals they espouse–is an exercise in madness. It is time to stop pretending that people who have directly contributed to pain and suffering are going to have moments of clarity. They know that their behavior is wrong, which is why they blame everyone else for it. We have no reason to keep confining ourselves to the arbitrary lines of “dignity,” “tradition,” and/or “democracy” when people are going insane trying to keep their rapidly dissolving lives together.
