Phony Activists, Apathetic Patriots & Other Things To Hate People For.
2017 has been, by far, one of the most troubling years I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing.
Did some Hollywood exec. lock me in a room and force me to watch him rub one out into a ficus you may be asking? I wish. Was it the athletes kneeling during the bought and paid for military industrial complex extravaganza that has become synonymous with American sports that irked me so much? Nope! Perhaps some beloved sci-fi/superhero franchise movie didn’t stick to the lore of the comic book that has me so distraught? Wrong again.
So what is it that has me so perturbed? What is it that has raised my ire so much that I felt compelled to write this? What it is, is the phony activism that masquerades as taking political action nowadays. It’s the over abundance of virtue signaling and faux outrage that has taken place of actual virtue and actual outrage. It’s the trying of the same ineffective methods to steer a completely corrupt rotten to the very core country back on the road via techniques that realistically haven’t worked since the Vietnam war era that has stirred the angry beast in me.
Protests, assuming people have managed to tear themselves away from their Twitter and Facebook timelines long enough to take to the streets, have taken on an air of unoriginal vomit inducing mediocrity that if I could give a viable comparison of, would be on par with that moment Starbucks went from being edgy and cool to the place where soccer moms and hipsters pretending to be irreverent in their joggers and quirky “un-ironic” hats drinking half-calf skinny vanilla lattes with almond milk congregate. In other words protests have gone from being the back drop to profound cultural change to an event to be “seen” at. A place to wear a pink cat hat sponsored by some charity masquerading as a way to empower women that usually just results in the CEO being able to drive a new Mercedes and hang out with one of the Kardashian weasel creatures.
It’s no longer about demanding change, smashing the corporate oppressors or recapturing that American spirit. It’s something gloomy, depressing and completely neutered now. It’s just someplace to say you went in a 160 character or less post in hopes to gain a like or a new follower. The woman’s march that happened after Trump was elected was nothing more than a gigantic #selfie gathering soiree of emptiness. Just a bunch of people standing out on the street with cleverly designed picket signs, wearing dinosaur costumes and posing for pictures giving their best fashionably angry face.
Net neutrality was just repealed despite the numerous angry phone calls to congressmen, online petitions and hashtag protests. The Republican tax bill that essentially transfers massive wealth from the middle class and poor to the rich wealthy elites is still being pushed despite all those angry tweets and retweets of angry tweets. The house and senate just voted to give the military industrial complex 80 billion dollars a year more to waste on fighter jets that don’t work and aircraft carriers that will never be used even though it would cost less than that providing free college education and/or student debt relief.
Strange that no real action other than typing out angry texts with thumbs didn’t result in a change of direction on any of these major middle fingers to the 99%. It’s almost as if the oligarchs and plutocrats that control this country could give two shits about you overloading their voicemails, retweets of angry Medium stories and your hashtag protests.
Apple just released what can inarguably be called the new “same shit as last time with a better camera” phone with a whopping price tag of over $1k. And just like the mindless consumers Steve Jobs always knew American’s to be, people stood in overnight lines for their chance to purchase this over priced rectangle that is sure to shit the bed as soon as the next one is released rendering it almost completely useless.
For me that was, until this horrific tax bill started being passed around, the make or break moment for us as acountry. It was the litmus test of whether people were going to stand and fight or continue suckling on their technological pacifiers. As much as I had hoped for the former I wasn’t the least surprised when people chose the latter.
American’s tenacity for convenience and apathetic activism has dealt the final fatal blow. That is why the day before the FCC voted to repeal net neutrality I had publically stated that it was definitely going to happen as everyone sat around calling for more angry phone calls and more angry tweets. It is this tenacity for inactivity that will be our next defeat as this shit show of a tax bill passes.
It is because people have chosen to give the appearance of activism over actual activism, that as this country nears ever so closer to complete collapse, why I just can’t muster the energy necessary to be angry at the rich wealthy elite. They’re doing nothing unexpected as far as I’m concerned.
Of course they’re going to try and take corporate control over the internet and basically control content. Of course they’re going to opt for giving the pentagon more money to go create more wars with countries that have resources they can exploit for profit. Of course they’re going to opt for a tax bill that basically rewards them for being rich and punishes you for being poor. These are things that are of no surprise to me and nor should they be to you.
But what I do have plenty of energy and anger to spare for is absolutely despising the people who have the nerve to walk around with their bottom lips poked out and quivering complaining about the sad state of affairs the country and therefore their lives have become. absolute rage at the people who have convinced themselves that Trump and by proxy Russia is what got this ball rolling towards authoritarian plutocracy even though there is a plethora of evidence that the ball got moving the second Bill and Hillary Clinton decided to usher neoliberalism into our lives. Absolute and outright contempt for anyone walking around feeling like a victim of the elite.
They proposed to end internet protections against monopolies and censorship. They tried to put a pedophile in the senate. They decided instead of doing something like helping people via universal healthcare or tuition free college to give the pentagon yet another blank check. They proposed a horrific tax plan that essentially robs money out of your pocket and gives it to billionaires as a reward for being rich and your response was create a hashtag.
WHAT IN THE FUCK DID YOU THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?
