Real monsters lurk in the walls of the halls of politics.
We are at the intersection of politics and horror flicks.
We all like to laugh at the heroes and heroines of horror films. Oblivious to danger, in that dark, foreboding house, they sit on the bed chatting or texting. We all see, though, that the wall swells and groans with pure evil. They get up to investigate. A hand to touch it and BANG! The monster pierces the wallpaper and sucks them through.
It makes us feel superior that we wouldn’t be that stupid.
Yet, as we watch a beast devour our democracy, we are that apathetic. We are being that stupid.
Across the globe, the real monsters, with billions to make their dark visions a reality, to really take your life, lurk in the walls of the corridors of power, a cancer on a growing number of the world’s governments.
Hungry for pure power, they cloak themselves behind old ideologies to build armies of zombie fanatic followers, worshipping at the internet radio, television altars of the wizards of the dark arts of false populism and patriotism.
You want to go about your daily lives and be left alone. You ignore the bulges in the political wall. They are not at your door yet. Maybe it really won’t affect you.
So the hope is that one of you reading this is our big “H” hero. You know, that curious, plucky sort, smarter than their friends, who doesn’t just stand there and get devoured. The hero who fights back after they learn the real identity of the beast.
Let’s peel back that Fox-infused wool for you, Hero.
It’s not about outsourcing or aliens. This isn’t a red thing. It’s not a blue thing. That’s all smoke, distraction.
It’s about greed. It’s about control. It’s about deadly serious power that affects you and everyone whom you love and know. It’s our world against theirs, and, if they win, they will extinguish a large part of the human race. For real.
White, male Christian power has been threatened by inclusion, pluralism, and democracy since the New Deal. It is aligning itself, and crossing borders to take power back into its small hands, and, thanks to technology, the modern industrialists who have the money have realized something very important:
Whether you’re in Indiana or India, you’re just not necessary.
Industry abhors glut, oversupply. Machines replace humans at every step of the ongoing Industrial Revolution. We generally find new things to do, but, as artificial intelligence and robotics continue to grow, millions and millions of people worldwide won’t be needed at a surgical table, in a law office, pharmacy, a taxi or truck, preparing people’s taxes, or checking out customers.
49M unemployed now. 80M by mid-century. We have a glut of consumers who won’t “earn” because their labors aren’t needed. The wealthy will own the machines that produce goods and services.
Really THINK about it, Hero. You’ve just learned the beast’s secret: If they’re taking the time and trouble to take you off their books, not have to pay out overtime, sick leave, pension money, union compensation, why, oh why, would they want to have to foot the bill to keep millions of you without a job alive?
You’re a drag on their resources, earnings.
Now, Hero, look around you. What do you see?
The GOP doesn’t believe in minimal government. They believe in government attached to the beast. Shred the social safety net. Make health care unaffordable. End Medicaid. Put Medicare into the hands of Wall Street to suck it dry.
Vulnerable people die.
No more immigration? Forcibly deport “the ones” that are “here.”
Vulnerable people die.
Fewer workers who don’t produce produce fewer consumers who consume.
The machines aren’t evil. It’s just a question of their place in society. Do a small number of people who own the means of production have responsibility only to themselves, or do the machines serve all mankind for its betterment?
Hollywood could not write something this legit, and heroes like you will have to have an adult conversation about that in the halls of power around the globe.
Right now, you may be sitting on the bed, at a Starbucks, in the subway, at your desk, at lunch, reading away, perhaps tweeting your outrage into the pointless partisan soup of the Internet.
What are you doing, though, to stop it, Hero?
Do you march? Do you vote? Do you get your family and friends out to the polls?
Around the world, hundreds of thousands of people turn out to the streets to protest. In Russia, Romania, and so many other countries around the world, citizens, hundreds of thousands of them, are risking their lives, and their freedom, taking to the streets to oppose the Randian selfishness and autocratic power grabs of people like Vladmir Putin and Robert Mercer’s puppet, Donald J. Trump. In America? Crickets.
Sure, the shock of a Trump win woke you up... A bit. You marched in outrage for women’s rights, and a few other causes, but by the time we got to march for science, you were tired of venting your outrage outdoors. The spin machines of the right minimalized it as kooks and pros. The media became bored covering it. Protests don’t win ratings weeks. Now it’s summer. Too hot to go out. “House of Cards” just released on Netflix, “Transformers,” fake control for the planet, hit the theaters. You have that vacation coming up.
Don’t be apathetic. Don’t be the distracted ones ignoring that bulge in the political wall. Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their nation, their planet, Hero. Brave the heat.
Start by calling every elected representative you have and opposing Trumpcare, which is pulling the “life” from “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” out of the hands of 22-23M Americans.
Organize people to vote in 2018. Get them to the polls. OR... Be a real American patriot and run for office...
Run.