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Down through history, great leaders of radical social movements have been misquoted and misrepresented in order to promote the idea that wealth is king. Well, that era is coming to an end. The plot by the wealthy classes to create a generation of mindless debt slaves has failed. More and more, people are realizing that the war on the educated poor in this society was planned and orchestrated by a corrupt business class hell bent on eradicating the gains made by poor Americans over the past several decades. Their plan was certainly well-organized, but it was not well thought out. The business elite believed that they could select all those with potential, recruit them into the business class and turn them against poor people. That plan has failed because there were simply too many bright stars such as me who fell through the cracks, who were left out of the world of success. Now that I and many others have been left behind, we are coming for our revenge on the wealthy classes. Make no mistake, this will not be a violent revolution, not on my end anyway. No, this revolution seeks something much more refined than violence. Our revolution, the revolution of the educated debt slaves, shall be a revolution of thought. No longer will you hear words like "hope" and "perseverance" from us. No longer will you hear dumb catchphrases like "rags to riches", "stop hating" and "hard work" from us. We have worked hard and gotten nothing for our efforts. We have hoped and we have been disappointed. We have persevered and received nothing in return. We have had rags and received no riches. We chose not to hate while you hated on us. We are done. We have given you the opportunity to make good on your promises to us, my dear elite class, and you have not delivered. And so, we will reject your gospel of capitalism. We will reject your idiotic optimism. We will reject your dogma of hope, your toxic positivity. All will be exposed as tools of the elite. Did you really think that no one would ever hold you accountable? Did you really think that your corporate propaganda would keep us at bay? You probably did, and now you will pay for your flawed reasoning and lack of empathy. A hoard of leftists is rising up now, and it will topple your fairy tale world dedicated to the flawed rationale of Adam Smith. A quote from the oft misunderstood, maligned and misquoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will clue you in on the fate that will befall you in a short time. Listen up oh wealthy ones, "At the very same time that America refused to give the Negro any land, through an act of Congress our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the west and the Midwest. But not only did they give the land, they built land grant colleges with government money to teach them how to farm. Not only that, they provided county agents to further their expertise in farming. Not only that, they provided low interest rates in order that they could mechanize their farm. Not only that, today many of these people are receiving millions of dollars in federal subsidies not to farm, and they are the very people telling the black man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. Now this is what we are faced with. Now when we come to Washington with this campaign, we are coming to get our check." You hear me rich people? We are coming to get our check, only this time it's not just going to be black people. No, no. You see, you fucked up and pissed off the white man, and the Asian man, and the Mexican man, and the white woman, and the Asian woman, and the Mexican woman too. Yes, you did. And I don't care how much money you throw around; you aren't going to be able to buy yourself out of this colossal fuck up of yours this time. You are doomed elitists. The clock is ticking. The bell is tolling, and it tolls for thee, rich man. Buy all the politicians you like. It's all just a waste of money anyway. We are educated, we are bold, and we are coming to get our check!

Well, we did it. We did it. We finally did it! Oh, come on. You know what I'm talking about. We. Did. It. That's right, we stuck to the man. We totally showed him dude. Johnny Depp is free. He's fucking free man. Alright. Alright! We really fucking did it. Good on us! Stupid pirate hats and cheap rum for everyone for you shall always remember this as the day that you almost caught an incredibly rich celebrity who cares absolutely nothing about you! Well done everyone. Well done. I'm clapping right now for you at this very moment. You did it. You gave Kyle Rittenhouse a reason to sue for defamation of character, and you should be very proud of yourself. Never in my life did I think a person who murdered someone would be able to sue for defamation of character. I underestimated you...or overestimated you...whichever one works. Anyway, the important thing is that you did something. You devoted months, some of you even over a year, to setting a legal precedent that could very well criminalize your right to speak out against abuse, especially when that abuse could or could not have been orchestrated by a person who is rich and famous. I mean, America, just when I think you couldn't possibly get any worse, you always surprise me. There really is no bottom in politics, no place to hide from the spin artists, nowhere to run from the bullshit artistry of the publicity stunt, the three-ring circus, the snake oil salesman. It's always there, waiting for you to slip up so it can shape and mold you as it pleases. But you don't care about legal precedent. I know. Trust me, I know. You care about Crybaby and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Pirates of the Carribean. You care about he Johnny Depp who appears to care about you, even if he really doesn't. And that's fine. I've accepted, over the years, that people want to have their cake and eat it too. You don't just want a flawed human being who struggles with rage just like most people. You want a superhero. You want Captain Jack Sparrow. You want to find neverland. That all makes sense in a very senseless way for that line of thought requires a dulling of the senses, especially those that sense scams. But I'm just talking nonsense of course. There's no way a megastar with millions on the line would ever lie to you. That doesn't happen. No, nothing ever happens in neverland, nothing too bad anyway. Everything is just right in a distorted kind of way. It's difficult to explain, especially if you've never been there. But, guess what? I've found it. That's right! I found neverland, and it had the most peculiar kind of behaviors. At one end of neverland, there is a man who shouts about free speech continuously. "Free Speech!", he shouts. "Free Speech!" But, the crazy thing is, the man yells "free speech" so much that he can barely hear himself talk and he certainly never listens to anyone else. There is also a woman dressed in her pajamas. She munches on candies, and pringles and crunches. She bites of her nails and pulls hair out in bunches. Then she shouts at the TV while she's on her lunches. "Liberal bias!", she shouts. "Conservative bias!", she mouths. No matter what the TV says, she points out a bias, but her bias is so biased she won't even try us. Then, toward the end, there's a man who hates women for hating men. He puffs out his chest and dances like a hen. "I hate all your hatred!", he squawks from his perch. "Damn all your self-love and self-care and self-worth! You're all far too selfish to think of myself first!" Then he nods off while watching Fox News Network. Then, at the end, there are nothing but cops. They mean you no harm until you think a free thought. Then it's off to jail for you to sit and rot. But there'll be no trials or fan mail for you, just a really high bail and no one to screw. And when you ask the cops why you are to blame, they'll tell you, for sure, their names you've defamed. There you will sit wondering how, the anti-woke folks have turned on you now

Earlier today I told a joke about the outdated and downright ridiculous show, America’s Got Talent. Why? Well, apart from the fact that talent shows are the vomit of the entertainment world, the whole idea that Hollywood is interested in any way in helping poor artists “get discovered” whilst being simultaneously located in Los Angeles, one of the most poverty-ridden cities in the nation, is a complete joke. As I have stated in past shows, the vast majority of Hollywood’s many jobs (they could cure poverty in the whole city simply by making it easier for artists to get employed instead of making them compete like dogs by the way) go to people who are already rich. This is not the 1940s. Poor people like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe are not getting work anymore. It’s the spoiled brat children of people who are already famous that are getting “discovered” these days and that’s not a discovery. That’s just some rich person giving their friend or family member even more money than they have already given them. Hollywood does not create jobs. It destroys dreams and even ends up killing many of the people who have those dreams. Hollywood is an embarrassment to the world of entertainment. Do you have any idea how many artists commit suicide every year because they are turned down by this cartoonish monopoly you call Hollywood every year? I don’t know. I searched the internet and nobody cared to look into it. That’s how heartless Hollywood is. They only give a shit about people kill themselves if they are famous. The thought crossed my mind when I was still ill, that was after Hollywood told me to go fuck myself. Yes, I was “discovered”. I was going to be a star in Hollywood. But I got sick and couldn’t finish the one more year of college they required of me to get my acting “fellowship”. Well, it wasn’t much of a “fellowship” was it? I’m still poor and they don’t care. Hell, they laugh at people like me, the poor folk. They think people starving to death on the street is funny. They make fun of it on their stupid shows and their stupid comedy specials. Maybe that’s why Hollywood chose to hurl me into poverty with their fake ass promise of a better life. Maybe they needed material for a new TV show. Anyway, back to my joke. There was some stupid advertisement for America’s Got “Talent” on Twitter and the visual played a video of a woman moving in very odd ways while doing simple tasks like putting on makeup, flossing and sitting in a chair. The crowd was basically climaxing over these boring acts, bursting into an orgiastic applause the likes of which I had never seen before. This looked absolutely ridiculous and it was. It’s ridiculous to cheer for people performing basic tasks. It’s stupid! So I told a joke about it, which I automatically regreted because there is nothing that the fans of cruel assholes on TV love more than to troll normal people who poke fun at them. Someone told me the person was singing while doing this, to which I responded that I was even less impressed than before. That may be surprising to you, but ventriloquism is not that impressive to me, and if you take away the puppet it’s really not impressive. Now it’s just a ventriloquist act without the most interesting part! Anyway, fans of the show are still bothering me on Twitter about it because fans on talent shows literally have no lives of their own to speak of. All of this celebrity gossip is nothing more than a big publicity stunt to sell you crap and, if you find that interesting, that’s your business, but don’t pull me down with you. I don’t have the money left to pay for it because Hollywood already made me lose all my money. Besides, you all should be happy I do what I do. You trash Amber Heard and Will Smith and anyone who dares speak back to your favorite celebrities on a daily basis. I'm just providing a little balance to the world, giving those whom you have silenced a voice. Don't like it? Why should I care? No one cared about me.

As I have stated elsewhere in episodes such as "Why People Follow Tyrants", the human animal is not inherently immoral or moral, but incredibly misunderstood. Humans are animals. They are likely not special beings sent from above to accomplish some task because, if they were, no one seems to have figured out exactly what the task we are supposed to accomplish is. The only thing that separates most humans from other animals like dogs or cats is their superior reasoning skills, which not all humans fully develop by the way. Unfortunately for humans, they also have primitive urges such as the fight or flight instinct or insatiable hunger, which often overpowers those superior reasoning skills and turns them into apelike creatures fighting over where to hold a ceremony or how to interpret an ancient piece of paper. That does not mean that humans are dumb; it is just a basic recognition of the fact that we display animalistic behavior. That should be enough for people, if they were purely reasonable. But that is never enough for anyone. There always has to be some deeper meaning to something for most people. It's not just junk that we can't see in the sky with our pretty inaccurately designed eyes. No, it is an unidentified flying object. Sorry, but that's just a complicated way of saying, "shit we can't see". And don't even get me started on the concept of destiny. It's not just that Sally forgot to open the refrigerator because she has a poor diet and is likely slipping into dementia. No, god works in "mysterious ways". This fantasizing about higher powers or deeper meanings never stops. Right now on social media platforms everywhere someone is claiming that Paul McCartney died in the 1960s, that Princess Dianna never died and lives on today as Elton John's husband, that George W. Bush planned 9/11, that JFK is coming back someday, that Donald Trump won the 2022 election, that Joe Biden is in a state of "mental decline" (whatever that means), that the book of Revelation in the bible is coming true...again, etc. Like I said, there is no end to this lunacy. People just seem to want more out of life. But why? Think back to the fact that animals, especially social animals, tend to gravitate toward packs. As humans we think the word "pack" is dirty. So, we call our packs other things: political parties, cults, religions, groups, organizations, businesses, families, social groups, etc. And, for all our sophistication and moral protestation, our respective packs fight with each other on a daily basis. If you don't believe me, head on over to Twitter and find yourself some Johnny Depp, who I now call white OJ, supporters, and watch as they slug it with the Amber Heard supporters over which one of them has the best points. You will witness exactly the same kind of pack behavior you see in the animal kingdom when a gang of leopards decides to go to war with a lion pride over a piece of old meat. Leopards even make a habit of attacking lion cubs, forcing the lions to defend themselves. There's no reason for this behavior. Leopards have teeth; they can get their own meat. They also have kids of their own. So why attack the lion pride? Well because they are aggressive animals. That is what aggression does to you; it makes you unreasonable. It makes you do things for no good reason. That is why I don't waste time with debating morality. I don't want to be like some dumb leopard trolling a lion pride for a piece of zebra. I have better things to do, like trying to maintain my reasoning skills. It's a jungle out there, an insane orgy of warring tribes and factions with a bunch of disease mixed in for good measure. This is the human experience, and I want no part of it, apart from the cool music and good times of course. But the moralists don't want you to have a good time. That is too base for them. They want to yell at you like an ape grunting a baboon over a banana. Be my guest moralists, but you're not convincing me of anything. 

If you talk to any American alive today about the Civil War, you get one of two versions. The first is that white American freed the slaves because they woke up one day and were like, "Oopsie poopsies. We made a big mistake. Let's go give the black people ice cream and hugs to make up for it." The second version goes something like, "well, slavery really wasn't all that bad. It was just indentured servitude like the bible says. In fact, many slaves loved their masters and many black people are worse off today than they would've been back then." But neither of these are correct and they are both insulting. This is not how slavery ended. As I have stated in painstaking detail in the past, including in my episode "How Black American Slaves Freed Themselves", white people had very little to do with freeing slaves. That is not to say that white abolitionists did not exist. They did, but, just as there are very few white people today who take black people seriously, they were always in the minority. There would have been no white abolitionists were it not for the work of black slaves. Black slaves frequently rioted, destroyed crops, attacked their masters, and even killed those who enslaved them. This became a huge problem for the production of things like cotton and tabaco and other goods. It started to make less sense economically to own slaves. If your workers are sabotaging your production efforts, you lose money. So, really what occurred is that black American slaves hit white people where it mattered most, their wallets. This is how we obtained our freedom, through open and secret rebellion against the system. Then came John Brown, a white Christian man so morally opposed to slavery that he actually declared a war on the institution and used force to free slaves. The South then made the dumbest move possible and executed John Brown for killing slave masters, who also made a habit of killing their slaves by the way. The North was outraged by this. Killing a white Christian preacher for using the Biblical principle "an eye for an eye"? That was unacceptable, even for the most racist Northerner, of which there were many. Then the abolitionist Julia Ward Howard wrote the openly militant song "John Brown's Body" for the purpose of rallying the North to squash the confederacy once and for all. This is a far cry from the complete idiot's guide to the civil war that teachers across the nation are allowed to teach. So, why don't they just tell the real history? Is it because of southern objection? Well, that's part of it. The south certainly does not want people knowing that their ancestors raped, beat and killed my ancestor, but that's only part of the story. You see, moderate politics were just as possible in the 1960s, during the centennial of the Civil War, as they are today. Moderates during the Centennial did not want to be too "divisive". Yes, they used that word. They wanted to pass the Civil War off as some delightful sporting event between two reasonable parties, not the all out brawl for human rights that it really was. This backfired on the moderates of the 1960s just as it is backfiring on the moderates of the day, who would rather you bullshit online about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, than deal with the fact that white supremacy is running rampant. The South denied a black representative the right to attend a meeting for the centennial committee. John F. Kennedy tried to move the meeting to a non-segregated area, but the south still refused. The south seceded from the committee. Kennedy was outraged, and likely a bit embarrassed. So, he said to hell with the south and became a huge proponent of Civil Rights in America. A few years later, while George Wallace declared "segregation forever", Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech on voting rights. He did not quote the bible at the end of his speech, but the "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", the song that union soldiers sang. The second Civil War had begun.  

Forgiveness is addictive. There, I said it and I don't feel bad about it. That used to be so wild to me, the notion that anyone would criticize the idea of forgiveness. Unlike many, I wasn't indoctrinated very heavily with the value system that we call Christianity. It was really never talked about in our home. The closest thing my family had to church was gathering around the table to eat dinner and watch Seinfeld, which was my Dad's favorite TV show after Cheers was taken off the air. I vaguely remember my mother talking to me about forgiveness, but only rarely. Besides, right after that she would go on some tirade about Bush Jr. and how much of a moron he was. So, I never really even took her that seriously. But, years later, as I became heavily indoctrinated in the Christian faith by various fundamentalist Christian You Tube videos, forgiveness became extremely important to me. Forgiveness is a big deal in Christianity. You always have to be willing to take in those who are in need. You don't ever really do it that much because you're scared someone might kill your or something. But I did actually help people when I was a Christian, mostly through direct food donations. I fed several of my LGBTQIA castmates willingly even though I had just been watching a sermon about how they were possessed by demons. They never were, but that's what I believed. I thought that, by showing kindness and forgiving the sinner, that they would become a member of my faith, and that, when that happened, I would grow even closer to Jesus. Then maybe, finally, he would make my epilepsy go away so I could be healthy and happy like other Christians I knew. Unfortunately for me, and luckily for my LGBTQIA friends, that never happened. I was never healed or "made whole" as I believe the bible refers to it. No demon was cast out of me because there never was demon inside of me. I have epilepsy. That's a part of who I am. But I refused to accept that back then. I believed in miracles. So, I stopped taking my medication and kept doing these good deeds to try to win god's favor, to get him to notice me. I really believed that would work. Now, of course, it all seems silly, even a bit suicidal, and maybe it was. Maybe the very concept of forgiveness is a bit suicidal. I've done the research on this. Nations that worship an all "forgiving" god have the highest crime rates in the entire world, even higher than nations who worship an unforgiving god, and that's after taking into considerations things like economic hardship. Now, I'm not saying that the punishments we have developed work either. I still support defund the police for example. I know The Young Turks and Tucker Carlson alike told you to shit on me for believing that we can do more with less police, but the recent murder of an elderly woman with dementia by a New Mexico police officer should put that fear to rest. I don't think the answer is more punishment. We need to become more gentle, but we can be gentle in mental health facilities or rehab centers or even prisons. Unlike most people who talk about defund the police, I have ideas to replace them. Firefighters being deployed for non-violent mental health crises works, for example. I've seen it in action and they are far more likely to use non-violent persuasion than the police. You could also follow the German model, and make prison a nice place. It does not have to be a dystopian rape cage. It could be a place where people go to get job training. You could have mentors working there. You could teach criminals the skills they need to have careers. So this episode is not about throwing the police at every little problem either. It is about valuing life and admitting that we have made mistakes that we can rectify. Today I am a huge advocate for my LGBTQIA friends because I owe it to them. But I also owe it to everyone to make sure that they do not end up harmed by this reckless ideology that says to forgive and forget the ills of the past

What's that in the sky? It's a bird. It's a plane. It's an extremely annoying wealthy comedian complaining about people not liking their act! And next to them, why, it's the Monopoly Man! His powers include price gouging, polluting the environment and making pennies in the hands of poor people magically vanish into thin air! The penguin suited douchebags bringing up the rear are the Fundamentalist Brothers of the Supreme Kangaroo Court. They make a mockery of the Constitution and ruin democracy everywhere for everyone at lightning speed! They do have one odd weakness though: women with sidewalk chalk. Yeah, I don't know. Don't ask. And, wait...Could it be? It is! It's, it's, it's...the Conspiracy Theorist. The Conspiracy Theorist trolls the internet at lightning speed, protecting the world from imaginary demons, lizard people and Joe Biden. But nothing compares to the Orange Turd, a former president who has the power of complete ignorance. When these conservative justice warriors combine their powers they become The Conservative Justice League! That's right, it's the Conservative Justice League, and they are here to save you from your own thoughts and opinions! Alright, enough with the cute intros. Let's get down to annoying ass conservative business. In my days as an up and coming political theorist and satirist and San Jose State University I would often come across articles about the military industrial complex, which still exist today in many forms, especially when you consider that Raytheon basically tells presidents when to start wars now. But this is for another episode. In this episode I will be talking about a new kind of complex, one that has steadily gained power over the years and that very few people realize exists. I am referring to the entertainment political complex. I know, I know. In your mind, there is no way that an organization like Hollywood would ever be conservative. But you fail to remember that, although Hollywood often shows "sinful" actions in their films (the very idea that you are thinking of actions in terms of being sinful or not already proves my point by the way), they also end every film with the same basic religious principles: forgiveness, redemption, bowing down before a harsh god, and good prevailing over evil. These religious themes, which can be found in every movie, documentary, television show, and standup comedy act produced by Hollywood today, has laid the framework for the coming American theocracy. These entertainers (Dave Chapelle, Jerry Seinfeld, Tom Cruise, Steve Harvey, and the rest) have spent decades indoctrinating you with conservative Christian values. I am not saying that they made a conscious choice to do so. They have no choice. This was the plan from the beginning because, you see, corporations own Hollywood now. When you put up money for a movie, you basically own the right to change the script as you see fit. That means that certain ideas are taken out, while others are added to the script. Corporations are inherently political. They seek to turn the populous into mindless, scared little children, kind of like the Bible. This makes you more likely to consume, to buy, to give even more money to them. Every movie is an advertisement, not just for coke or Ikea, but for political policy. Dystopian fantasies, for example, often inform you that the world is ending, just like Revelation in the Bible. This causes consumers to panic buy. Crime films always portray cops in a positive light; this is done to get you accept police brutality, which protects companies from unions and protests. Cartoons teach you to always be positive, even if you are starving to death. This constant positivity makes you shut up when you need help from your government. Standup comedy is used to shame minorities, to make them feel bad about demanding equality. Romantic comedies portray women as simple-minded sex demons, which is done to deny women their rights. You still lauhghing? 

Who influences the influencers? It's a question that rarely anybody asks, which is already a bit suspicious. In an age where we know more about our world than ever, whenever I see an unanswered question, I am always left wondering who benefits from the question remaining unanswered. Sure, there is not always an answer there, but preparing for the worst often leads to the best outcomes. I have a political mind. I never take things at face value, mostly because all of the information lies beneath the face. Humans speak in metaphors and legalities. They say what will please the most people, and do not say what will displease the most people. Even if you are "apolitical" you are still a politician to me. I do not want to hear proclamations of abstract concepts like "peace" or "love" or "freedom" from the politicized human psyche, and so I cut to the core. It does not take much investigating to find where influencers make their money. Up until recently I was under the impression that social media influencers were owned by corporations. There is ample evidence that this is quite true. Major corporations drop millions of dollars a year on marketing and the small pittance they dole out to social media influencers is only a very small part of that budget. However, I now have evidence that politicians are also funding social media influencers. Good thing you don't follow anyone famous, right? Not so fast. Micro-influencers, social media influencers with 25,000 followers or less, are now being used by companies and politicians alike. While some politicians disclose that they are using social media influencers, there is no law that requires such a disclosure. That means you are more than likely following an influencer who is under the influence of any number of party candidates up for election this year and any other year there is an election. In case you are wondering, this does not seem to be something that just the right is doing. On the right, several micro-influencers have been caught spreading lies about the election being "rigged", which also just happens to be the opinion of Trump and his followers. On the left, micro-influencers involved in the "healthy lifestyle" have been caught promoting information on climate change. This poses several difficult questions that virtually no one is asking. Is it ethical to use propaganda to further what you consider to be a "good cause"? Is manipulating people fine as long as doing so improves society in some way? Lying is not protected by the first amendment, so is deceptive marketing lying? Is the right to manipulate protected by law? Are your opinions your own or were they given to you by "alternative news sources"? I will tell you right now that it is difficult to think for yourself when your thoughts are not your own. This age of "free thinkers" is not what it seems. Everyone is manipulating, scheming, plotting to alter your worldview, to replace it with their own. Can you think freely in such a world? I think so, but it takes much more than the average person is willing to give. It takes skepticism, but it also requires a lighthearted cynicism as well. One must realize that you cannot assume the best of people in such a world in order to remain untainted with the propagandistic filth of partisans and snake oil salesmen. People who seek to control your minds are not your friends. Those of you who have been in abusive relationships know, more than anyone, that the abuser always seeks to infiltrate and change the mind. This is abuse. You are being abused when people secretly try to change your mind, whether it be for "your own good" or not be damned. It is important to remain distant from those who provide simplistic answers to difficult questions. Thinking for oneself is a human right. Nothing can change this. We must fight for our right to think freely. It is not the place of the government or big business to control thoughts. Liberate your mind and you have won. 

American democracy is no longer dying...it’s dead. That’s right, I said it. I don’t really care how you feel about it. It’s over folks. How do I know? This morning, whilst I was on Twitter mocking the positive thinking gurus for their positively charged ignorance, I came across a video of members of the FDNY standing outside of a church. A group of pro-abortion protestors passed by the house of worship shouting, “my body, my choice”. One of the FDNY, a male Trump supporter of course, then replied, “You have no choice! The Supreme Court ruled that you have no choice! It’s not your body! It’s my body! The Supreme Court said so!” That type of behavior has nothing to do with democratic values and the word should no longer be allowed when describing American government. But that, of course, will not bother conservatives. Conservatives believe that we should return to a more traditional time, the time when women were unpaid house servants and there were plenty of jobs available for men. This is the endgame of all of this. It is estimated that, were they to become pregnant today, about 25% of women would not be able to keep their jobs. This is because these women’s employers only offer about ten days of paid leave for pregnancy before they show you the door. Many women are not able to return to work after ten days for various reasons (post-partem depression, no childcare, no next of kin to watch the infant, etc.) But conservatives do not want a world where women are allowed to work and support themselves; they want a world where women are punished for having a night of fun. God forbid any American woman enjoy herself without the express consent of some dumb fuck with chewing tobacco running down his fat gullet living in Alabama. That just ain’t Christian. And please spare me the, “I’m a conservative and I think women should have a right to choose” speech. I don’t believe you. I don’t believe because, if you really did believe in a woman’s right to choose, you would not continue to vote for candidates who are hostile to women’s choice. So, stop trying to pretend to be fair and balance or reasonable or whatever Tucker Carlson told you to say. I am not impressed, nor am I as dumb as some of your liberal friends who actually buy your bullshit that you’re on their side.  And spare me the “state’s rights” speech as well. The last time people blathered on about “state’s rights” in America a Civil War started. But I don’t even have to look to that example. I can simply point to the fact that Mitch McConnell has now stated that a federal abortion ban would be totally acceptable. A federal ban would mean that all states, including California and New York, would not be able to legally provide abortion services for women. Oh, and how about the anti-contraception bills that are now being drawn up all over the south? One state has already outlawed some forms of contraception. But that’s a coincidence right? You’re not that kind of conservative. You're not that kind of Christian. Bullshit. Yes, you are. You’re a member of a party that took away people’s rights. You go to a church with people who promote these policies. You’re no better than they are. In fact, you’re worse because you won’t even admit that you are part of the problem. You are like an enabler of a drug addict who says, “I’m just going to bring the needle over and place it on the table for safe keeping. Now, don’t you go using on me. Be responsible. Play nice.” But you're not playing nice conservatives, and neither are the Christians, and neither am I, not anymore. This era of kind political debate is over. I see who you are. I know that, secretly, you do want women barefoot and pregnant. You get off on it, being able to say that you're better than other people, that you're a good boy or girl who takes precautions. Well, pretty soon the Supreme Court will come for you too. Perhaps your brand of religion, or lack thereof, will be too "liberal" or "radical". You're next

I rarely discuss human sexuality anymore these days, mostly because many people I meet, for all of their pontification of sexual liberation, are pretty grossed out about it. In America there are essentially two versions of every argument; both of them argue that the world will end if we are not boring. The same can be said of human sexuality. Right wing Americans view sex as an affrontery to religious doctrine. This is why you will find conservatives across every social media network discussing how sex and all of its incarnations have ruined the modern world. In the conservative mind, it is not obesity or poor diet or the rise in chronic illness that is the cause of the rise of infertility and erectile dysfunction in men. They argue that sex itself or pornography causes these things, which will ultimately lead to the extinction of the human species as a whole. They have no evidence for this, but they argue it nonetheless. Simply increasing the amount of physical activity in public schools and the workplace, along with removing fast food from schools and places of business would easily solve these problems. “Left” wing America (there is no real left wing in America; it is just a coalition of centrists and apathetic people who like Noam Chomsky) is a bit more nuanced. Their argument is that sex is bad because it leads to “immoral” actions like marriage and having children, which, in their minds, will cause people to create excess waste that will destroy the planet. The moderates also have very little evidence for their claims. While it is true that human caused climate change is real, most climate activists fail to realize that corporations create the most waste, not little Timmy and Tanya, nor the married couple that lives down the street that these people obsess over for some reason. If you simply limited these corporations’ ability to create excess waste, then climate change would become a thing of the past. Neither side has a positive view of the sex, proving that America, for all of its differences, is nothing more than a theocracy. Theocracy, the rule of people by a class of priests, also seeks to control human sexuality as both the conservative and moderate wings of the American political system seeks to do. This is no coincidence. The control of sexuality is necessary if one wishes to control massive groups of people. In order to control the masses, one must keep them in a constant state of stress, fear and crippling anxiety. Sexual expression between consenting adults relieves stress and anxiety, thus making life more tolerable and less horrifying to people. This is why the theocrats (moderates and conservatives are the priests of American theocracy; people like Mitt Romney and Joe Manchin are perfect examples) so desperately want to take your pornography away from you. It is also why they oppose your right to express who you choose and to be with, marry and procreate with who you choose. Anyone who tells you that procreation or marriage or homosexuality or transgenderism are somehow wrong or bad are all part of this theocratic mindset, even if they may not realize or intend it. There is nothing wrong with sexual expression as long as there is consent from the individuals involved and as long as the individuals involved are of age. But America is a boring and gossipy nation, so Americans are always trying to create problems with human sexuality where there are none. I do not think this will ever change in America because it has always been a sexually stunted nation from the get go. So, expect further legislation protecting you from having a good time in the bedroom. It’s kind of what we do here. Oh, and be sure to rinse your eyes out with chlorine after reading this. Some jerkoff on Christian Twitter told me STDs can be transmitted visually and you never can be too careful. Say a prayer to exercise the masturbation demons and try to only date inanimate objects to protect the environment from utter destruction.

I don't have to tell you that most social media influencers are completely full of shit. You already know that because you see them on social media bothering you and your friends every time you try to have a little fun. These people are downers. They exist for only two reasons that I or anyone else can think of: to make you feel bad about yourself and to tell you which products to buy to make you feel better about how they made you feel bad about yourself. Apart from that, they have no purpose. While these discontent creators are very skilled at pretending to create communities for people to feel safe in, they actually spend most of their time arguing about proper punctuation while tweeting or saying what is okay and not okay to talk about when in their presence. The whole reason these jerks even make a dime is because of people like you, yet they spend the vast majority of their time bitching about how much they dislike the people they supposedly created the online community for in the first place. The other day I was shocked to find a very popular atheist influencer chew out another atheist for referring to the bible as one book, which Christians do all the time by the way, and proceed to mock her for not stating that the bible is a collection of sixty-six books. Seriously? What is the point of that? I'll tell you what the point is. The nation is heading in the direction of Christian theocracy. Everyone knows this, though no one wants to admit it. Influencers know this is happening too, and they know that they will lose their various corporate sponsorships if they piss the Christians off too much. So, many of the so-called atheist influencers on social media make a habit of babying Christians, while at the same time insulting their atheist followers, who made them popular in the first place by the way. But that's not just the case for atheist influencers. All influencers eventually sell out their followers for the big bucks. Here are just a few examples. Influencers such as Izzy and Tai have posted several pictures of themselves diving into a beautiful bright blue lake in Galacia, Spain, encouraging their followers to do so as well, and even claiming that the lake has special healing powers. The only problem with this is that the lake, "is contaminated from a World War II-era tungsten mine, where an iron manganese tungstate mineral was once harvested to make lightbulbs." Side effects include vomiting, rashes and fucking death you asssholes! Then there was the unnamed influencer who trampled all over a botanical garden in order to get a picture in nature to post on Reddit. 100% organic? How about 100% douchebag? Then there's Positravelty (influencers make their own words because who has time for English anyway), which recently posted a beautifully suicidal picture of a man holding his girlfriend over a huge fucking hole in the ground. Had he slipped or gotten weak she would be dead, but the power of positivity compels you! So, keep on smiling. It's not like that type of behavior has ever led to anyone dying or anything. I mean, it has, but again, influencers can't even be bothered to use real words so how on earth would they understand something like physics? Then there are the countless influencers who make the trip to Antelope Valley, not to exercise or anything constructive for that matter, but to trample all over wild flowers so they can post pictures of themselves on Instagram. One woman actually stripped down naked and covered her vagina and breasts with poppies, which just screams yeast infection, but the photos, the photos are so gorgeous! Finally, I would be remiss not to mention that many influencers send messages to hardworking business owners in hopes that these people, who are barely scrapping by after the pandemic, will give them handouts in exchange for...well, nothing really. No one goes on Twitter or Instagram to find what business to shop at. They just want free stuff because they're popular. 

In the golden age of media, journalists (that's fancy intellectual talk for someone who reports on shit instead of trying to sell shit) mostly investigated scandals and corruption. Were it not for journalists no one would have known that Nixon and his band of misfits were busying themselves trying breaking into the DNC. Were it not for the newspapers we would not have known that the creators of the arts and crafts industry were coloring wallpaper with deadly arsenic. Were it not for journalism we would still be eating steak with our cheeseburgers and compound butter, and so on, and so on. This is why I don't spend much time criticizing major media sources. For all of their many faults, and there are many faults in the media, they have done a great deal of good by informing the world of the actual corruption that exists within many of our major institutions. The media can even be counted on to report on itself from time to time, but not always. Sometimes we need to have a look at the people who are doing the reporting. We need to ask what their motives are as well. That doesn't mean that I believe the media is out to get me. They're not. In this particular instance, I don't even think that they are trying to mislead me, though they have been known to do that from time to time as well. But when Will Smith slapped the shit out of Chris Rock on Oscar night, the media lost all sense of intellectual honesty and flew into an entertainment induced frenzy. Just check out some of these very silly and also very hilarious headlines that are now cluttering your search engine for movies like "Independence Day", "Ali" and whatever the hell Chris Rock was in the nineties when he was still popular: "Chris Rock's Mom Speaks Out on Will Smith's Oscar Slap", "Will Smith Hasn't Personally Apologized to Will Smith for Oscar Slap", "Terry Crew Offers Honest Take on Chris Rock and Will Smith's Slap Drama" and, my personal favorite, "Will Smith Jets to India to Practice Meditation to Reflect on His Behavior After Slapping Chris Rock". I mean, seriously, what the hell is all of this shite? Who gives a fuck what Chris Rock's mom has to say? What kind of a man gets his mom to fight his battles for him anyway? Did Chris Rock call his mama crying after it happened? I can see it right now, Chris Rock's buck toothed ass crying on the phone, "Mama! Mama! Why doesn't Will Smith think I'm funny?! Wah!" And when did Terry Crews big forehead having ass get brought into this discussion. That ashy negro has something to say every time black people are in trouble, and that is no coincidence. He's probably working for the alt-right just like most of these Hollywood negroes are today. Yep, I said it. What are you going do about it? Sick Chris Rock's mom on me? I'm shaking in my boots. I'm pretty sure the last headline about Will Smith flying off to India to reflect on upsetting Chris Rock's mom is completely made up. Sounds like ticket sales to India have taken a downturn to me. The only reason I even did a show on this topic at all is because I wanted to show you how ridiculous the news has gotten, how it's all about entertaining people now and how the substance of the media is virtually non-existent now. There was a time when things like this were saved for People Magazine or TMZ, but that time is long gone. The gossip channels and the news channels blend together now. The sensationalism and shit talking in media has become so prevalent that it is hard to tell serious intellectual discussion from vulgar conversation that used to be reserved for dirty movie theaters and bars. That is why I always laugh when people call me out for cursing on my show. At least I'm giving you a fresh perspective on the idiocy that has overtaken our news. At least I tell you it's news entertainment. At least I don't pretend to be this infallible news anchor who's never told a lie. It's all a joke so don't be surprised when people aren't taking the news seriously. 

There is a myth in American a politics, a persistent, never-ending, uninformed myth that plagues the Democratic party, and keeps them in the dark on various issues, that is of course assuming they have any desire to see the light, which is a big assumption. The Democratic establishment is set in its ways and will not change for their base so that is a big assumption. I am starting to think that they enjoy telling this myth because that way they do not look so ridiculous when they manage to lose to far-right conservatives and burnout libertarians that I could honestly beat in my sleep. This myth is the myth of a centrist America, a reason based unemotional lump of boredom that decides what policies do and do not happen in America. However, when you look past the myth of the rational middle, and you actually look at the political leanings of the electorate, you see something much different, much less boring and far more diverse than most people imagine. The "middle" in America are composed of three main groups: independents, moderates and undecided voters. As clearly demonstrated in the article by Lee Drutman entitled "The Moderate Middle is a Myth", none of these three groups are "reliably centrist". That is political speak for no one really knows how these people will vote until they vote. If you look at each of these groups you will find an almost fifty-fifty split between egalitarian ideology (this is the idea that all people are equal and therefore deserve the same opportunities) and more market based ideology, which basically means they are motivated by which policies create the most profit. Within this almost fifty-fifty split between egalitarian and market-based ideology, you will find people bordering on the middle on both. You will also find a mixture of people who lean to the left on certain issues like free speech while at the same time leaning to the right on various other issues like immigration. The message you should take from this is that in America the center is not centrist. That sounds odd until you realize that centrism is a political ideology, not an indicator of one's willingness to compromise. Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema, both centrist Democrats, have been the least likely to compromise during Biden's tenure as president. Both progressives and Republicans in Congress have been more willing to compromise with Biden (the progressives have been so willing to compromise with him that it is difficult to even call them progressives anymore) than either Manchin or Sinema. Centrism as an ideology is just being a people pleaser to milk the electorate of the most votes. The whole point of centrism is to prevent progress, not to embrace it. You are a centrist when you do nothing and the centrists in Congress have done nothing. Biden has foolishly aligned himself with these centrists and so has aligned himself with political inaction. This is bad news for any politician. If you want to be elected in America you must actually enact the policies that your voters want. Sure, Democrats on Twitter are feverishly trying to convince you that that is what happened, but it didn't. Leftists put Biden in office. Some of those leftists were independents. Some of them were true liberals. Others were moderates or undecideds. But pretty much all of them were in their teens to mid thirties. You know, the people that Democrats are always busy talking shit about. Younger people are far more likely to fall under the spell of apathy after the person they vote for refuses to keep their promises and Biden has not kept his promises. He ignored voting rights. He failed to create the gun legislation he's been promising since Obama was president. He left women out in the cold on Roe V. Wade, which will be repealed soon by the way. He laughed at people when they asked for the $2,000 dollar monthly checks, the ones that he and his vice president promised. He also never canceled the $10,000 of student loan debt he promised. He's doomed

America is a peaceful nation...as soon as you have drifted off to sleep. But, at its core, America has always been like most nations: bloody, violent and unforgiving. America lives by the law of competition. If one does not compete, they will perish. It is as simple, primal and barbaric as that. You must race off to buy some house or to invest in some entrepreneurial gamble. The more you complete, the more you will be liked. The less you compete, the more likely you will die on the street, and no one will care either, especially if you are poor. The American aristocracy dreams of exterminating the poor once and for all. This is true of the American right and the American center, otherwise referred to as "the left". Both of these warring factions are looking to exterminate the poor in vastly different ways. Centrists favor what I like to call "slow kill" extermination. They throw out some crumbs, mostly in the form of independent contractor jobs (these are jobs with no benefits that are not sustainable for normal things like raising a family), but also in the form of cruelly dangling welfare over people, while at the same time making it extremely difficult for them to qualify for. Centrists are altruistic genocidal maniacs. They prefer to be seen as superior to the right, more enlightened, even a bit cooler for the kids to watch, in their minds anyway. But, deep in the recesses of those centrist minds is a desire to eliminate the poor, to breed out the bad stock. Right-wingers, of course, are "fast kill" exterminators. They make it difficult for you to even apply for welfare. They make the requirements ridiculous. They make it so that you have to pay inordinate sums of money to be healthy and because they profit off of your poor health by aligning themselves with various fast food companies, they benefit from prescription drug companies even more than centrists do. You will find right wingers online talking about the "health benefits" of red meat and even smoking cigarettes. This, of course, is nothing short of attempted murder. I hate to break it to you, but if you eat red meat on a consistent basis (by consistent I mean anymore than once a week) your life expectancy will go down every time. And, look, don't take that personally. None of this is personal or me telling you that I think I am better than you. I am just telling the truth. Smoking, alcoholism, binge eating, diets that are heavy in omega 6 fats with little to no omega three fats...all of these things will kill you slowly and painfully. But the right promotes it. Sometimes even the centrists will promote these things. Why? To kill off the poor people. Aristocracies do not look well upon the peasantry. The misinformation agents of today (the various podcasts, instagram accounts, You Tube channels, etc., etc.) are merely an extension of the soft kill tactic. I know it sounds strange, perhaps even impossible. But, really, what does Joe Rogan owe to you? How about Dr. Joseph Mercola? What about Dr. Oz? How about Dr. Phil? Nothing. They owe you nothing. They don't know you. But they know that they can pull on your heart strings and once you have someone by the heart strings, you have full access to their wallets. Never forget the countless amount of people who have been scammed out of house and home or just life in general by these hucksters. An expensive camera and well placed lighting can make any crazy person with a budget look perfectly normal, as if they agree with everything you think, even if they don't. You may think these people who make up their own facts are harmless, but there exist something deeper beneath the surface. Companies own these fakers look, stock and barrel. Big business is in a war with the government to milk you for all you have. Some of these clowns have government and big business ties. Do you see the conflict of interest? Can you feel the squeeze tightening around your wallet? Your personality? Your perception of reality? 

When analyzing the works of any great political theorist or of any subpar politician, you will quickly note the aversion to tyrants. According to these great and subpar minds, tyrants are responsible for everything wrong with the world today: wars, toxic work environments, abusive relationships, egotistical celebrities, and poor teamwork are just a few of the things off an almost endless list of ills that tyranny is supposedly responsible for. I say this not to be facetious, but to highlight a very real and very flawed trait of current western political theory, that being that the vast majority of people are reasonable and moral, while they tyrannous few rain on their peace parade. This view of the world is just as irresponsible as it is misinformed. We tell our children to go out into the world with open hearts and unguarded minds because of this idiotic theory of natural goodness. Then we turn around and blame those very children when they develop risky behaviors and personality disorders. This is a classic case of blaming the victim. We set people up to fail by convincing them that most people are good, not realizing that once you have been stabbed in the back for the ten thousandth time, crime and recklessness begin to look more and more appealing. Afterall, if your parents, leaders and teachers lied to you about naturally good world, then anyone will lie to you. So, why not just lead a life of crime? Why be good to people who only use morality to reach their own personal, often greedy, goals? These are the questions the political theorists and philosophers of the day have pretty much abandoned. Instead they prefer to sweep difficult issues under the rug and wax philosophical about the good old days when racism was king and women were considered disposable party favors. They will tell you that the world was once not like this, that there was a time when people were reasonable and peaceful. These are all lies. The world has not changed much at all, and people have always fallen victim to nostalgia. I say fall victim because nostalgia always picks and chooses which memories it will fixate over. Obviously nostalgia chooses the best memories and forgets the worst memories, leaving us with a picture perfect view of the past. People under the spell of nostalgia should always be ignored and even ridiculed for this reason. There is no place in politics for such lazy thinking. So, how do tyrants rise to power in a world full of peace-loving, god-fearing people? One could of course blame ideology, but this is another lazy argument. There are good and bad points in every ideology. So, in this instance, people focus on everything bad about Christianity, or Islam, or Communism, or Capitalism, etc., leaving out the many good things that these worldviews offer, and again leaving us with an uninformed conclusion about the world we live in. In Enlightenment philosophy, rationality and the individual are king and queen. But selfishness often causes us to rationalize genocide or police brutality or unaffordable healthcare. In Russian philosophy, the collective and spirituality and are kind and queen. But the collective is praised in such a way that it becomes god, eventually leading to the annihilation of anyone who goes against it. The truth behind all of this idiocy is this: people love tyrants. Of course they will never admit to this, but this is only to keep up appearances. The human mind is lazy and so the human being is always looking for shortcuts to problems. Some people refer to this chronic laziness as "human ingenuity" or "technology", but really it is nothing more than a way of being lazy, of having some device or technician do your thinking for you. Modern humans are the laziest they have ever been. They need to be told to exercise. They need to be told that certain foods are bad for them. They need to have a sky daddy or a political daddy tell them what to do, and so they tyrant comes in, offering the final solution.

Have I ever told you that you could be wiser, faster, stronger, and an all-around better person? Well, if I did, you would probably think I was a jackass, and you would have every reason to. Implying that someone is somehow incomplete or unperfected is just a form of passive aggressiveness, a way to insinuate that someone is awful without actually saying it out loud. Yet many people make a living doing this on a daily basis. They go by many names (wellness coach, lifestyle councilor, motivational speaker, etc.), but they are all members of the thirteen billion dollar self-improvement industry, and they are coming for your wallet. They are just full to the brim of all kinds of swanky technology (brain hacks, wellness apps, etc.) to turn you into the you you never thought that you could be. But there is only one problem. Self-improvement does not work. It fails every time because it assumes that you are the problem, that you are the one who needs to change. But, seriously, how much can one person change? What is the limit? How many green smoothies can you drink? How much time can you devote to meditation? How much yoga can you squeeze into your schedule? How many pep talks can you listen to? How much longer can you go on trying to be a better person? Does it ever end? If self-improvement gurus had their way, it never would. As long as you seek out their advice, these life coaches will continue to find things wrong with you. They will always have new checklists of things that you need to do to feel better because that is how they make money. As soon as your wellness journey ends, so does their payday. So, much like a drug dealer, the wellness gurus will only ever give you a taste of the good life they enjoy. This keeps you coming back for more: more books, more lectures, more coaching, more fitness programs, more breathing exercises, more yoga poses, more quasi-intellectualism, more pep talks, more, and more, and more of your money down the wellness drain. It always makes me laugh when I see someone complain about how religion has failed them only to turn around and offer me some idiotic guide to being a better person. What is the difference between self-improvement and religion? There are lengthy texts devoted to how you should live your life. They are rituals, some of which are directly pulled from eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, that you must perform to achieve enlightenment. There are strict and often unreasonable diet restrictions one must follow. There are group meetings. There are even places that one must go to hear the self-improvement hustlers spread the good word. It is exactly the same thing, and it costs just as much money too. The faithful flock is fleeced just like always. What makes this all even more scandalous is that this way of thinking offers no solutions to your very real problems, but merely treats the symptoms (anxiety, depression, insomnia, starvation, etc.) of those problems. Few people today seem to realize that treating symptoms will get you absolutely nowhere if you fail to address the problem causing said symptoms. If you are not hungry, for example, you can smoke a little weed, and your hunger will come back. But let's say that cancer is causing your lack of hunger. Did you treat the cancer with your smoke session? No, you just made yourself hungry for a brief time. You put a dollar store bandage on a gaping wound. The same thing can be said of treating things like anxiety or insomnia. Great, your magnesium supplement made you less anxious. But why were you anxious in the first place? It could be a chronic illness like mentioned earlier or it could just be that society is broken. You could be feeling all of that anxiousness because you know damn well that the person you voted for is not going to help you. That insomnia could be there because you don't even know if you're going to be able to feed your family tomorrow. It's time to learn to face life's problems head on again 

I told you two years ago, as both corporate Democrats and old guard Republicans like George W. Bush Jr. began trumpeting their calls for unity amongst a divided nation, that we would end up here. I told you because I felt an obligation to do so, as I have seen this little game before. See, you're probably really great at something, perhaps management, maybe computer repairs, possibly making soap. Hell, there are all kinds of things it could be. And do you know what? Unlike most other people you meet in your life, who will only ever focus on the talent that makes the most money, I am willing to bet you are great at two, three or maybe even five things. And do you know what else? I would never tell you how to do those things, and, if I really needed to learn how to manage a successful company or fix my old computer or start an organic soap franchise, I would come to you, totally humbled and in search of the knowledge you possess. Unfortunately for you, I am really great at what I do, the whole political analysis thing I mean. And guess what? I totally called it. I know these bozos out in D.C., not personally, but I know their game. The unity calls start coming right before something really catastrophic occurs. This is where good old Hegel comes in. But you don't have to manufacture a crisis. They come along naturally every thirty years or so anyway, but that's a discussion for another episode. Though it sounds fancy, the Hegelian dialectic is quite simple to use to your advantage politically. You're presented with a problem, and two sides with differing opinions. You allow the extreme versions of each solution to have the most press time. This enacts a flight or fight response in the populous. Both are advantageous to the center (the corporate Democrats and old guard Republicans I mention earlier). An extreme right creates violence and chaos while pushing for strict adherence to traditional Christian values, while extreme left demands censorship, diet regulation and a subscription to Noam Chomsky's You Tube channel. Now, you can pick the two sides apart. You call them irrational, unreasonable, psychopathic, narcissistic, anti-social, blah, blah, blah. But you don't distinguish between the extremists and people who just want things like civil rights, lower taxes, or easier access to health care. Do you see how you have killed two birds with one stone? Now, once election time comes around, you can make some pretty cutthroat policies and play kiss ass to all those companies who fill your pockets. Now, Nancy Pelosi doesn't look so bad when she supports a member of her party's reelection, even as he is under investigation by the FBI, and just happens to be pro-life. Oops! I bet you didn't see that one coming, huh? No, not Nancy. She would never do that. Well, she did, and now you have some explaining to do to your daughters when they cannot have access to abortion services. See how "reason" can be used against you, how the center of the road is just as rough, relentless and unforgiving as the right or the left of the road. That's why I always tell you, you have to pick sides in politics. Then at least you will be able to tell your children or your loved ones or yourself that you stood for something. You won't be so cold and lonely on that deathbed of yours. I know you don't want to think about it, but it's coming, sooner rather than later for some of us. Yet we all crave to be included in this farce we call democracy. We all want to kiss and make up with people who clearly abuse us. It's unhealthy, but you know that. You don't need me to tell you. Did you see how easily they rolled over on the whole "Don't Say Gay Bill"? Remember that whole voting rights thing? Nope, all forgotten. All forgiven. Almost as if it never even happened. That's Hegel for you. It works every time. This certainly isn't acceptable, this willingness to put getting along over our own freedoms. But it is expected. Open minds are easily indoctrinated.

The term Hell's Kitchen was first used in America in the 1800s to refer to a particular area in Manhattan (west of 8th Avenue to the Hudson River and north and south from 34th Street to 59th street to be exact) that, by the 1850s, became mostly populated by Irish immigrants, with a small mixture of Jewish, Italian and German immigrants sprinkled amongst them, who had come to America to escape the Great Potato Famine. As is the case with most origin stories, the true meaning of the term can only be deciphered by digging through a sea of both mythos and fact. The truth is that no one knows the exact reason why the term Hell's Kitchen was used to describe the area, but we can certainly take some educated guesses. A possible explanation was the downright barbaric working conditions that came along with working on the various tanneries, railroads and docks in the area. To give you an idea of what it was like working in or living near a tannery in 1800s America, this excerpt from "Hemlock and Hide: The Tanbark Industry in Old New York" by Hugh O. Canham sums it up pretty well, "Life in a tannery town was tough. The work was hard manual labor. Living next to a tannery meant the constant stench of curing leather and stagnant pools of waste material. Streams became heavily polluted as tanning liquors, lime solutions, flesh, and hair were discharged directly into them..." Some of the workers worked twelve hour days with only Sundays off, some worked only part time, while others only worked seasonally, camping out on the tannery property during pealing season. Accidents and deaths while building the railroads were common place. It was not uncommon to see longshoremen work all day to transport goods in and out of the country. The work was no cake walk so there was plenty of opportunity for crime to start developing in the area, which offered more money for less work. A few of the major organized crime units in the area were The Hell's Kitchen Gang, The Gopher Gang and The Parlor Mob. They offered "protection" to local businesses by forcing those businesses to pay them off...or else. They also ran illegal gambling operations. The famous reference to sleep with the fishes applies here, as many of the people who challenged the gangs ended up in the Hudson River for a permanent vacation. The gangs also fought with each other, attempting to gain hegemony over incoming goods from distant lands (the early days of the American black market, which still thrives to this day), as well as the labor unions. During prohibition, these crimes intensified as the mob bosses warred over who had control of the illegal alcohol market. Mob bosses profited so much that they even tried their hand in the entertainment industry, investing in the Cotton Club. During the Great Depression, the mob took further control by offering jobs to the populous after shaking down various businesses. During WWII, the mobs robbed boats of armaments being sent over to Europe. Crime spread rapidly. Fear gripped America. The established order, what little there was to begin with, was set aflame. You may not realize it, but you are now living in such a time. Jobs are scarce. Tyrants are threatening nuclear war. Crime is rampant. Moralists are calling for bans on all kinds of drugs and normal behaviors like sexual experimentation, which create even more opportunities for the black market to thrive, and thrive it will, as long as you let yourself be lead astray by the descendants of these mad men you call leaders. If you make a deal with the devil, if you sell yourself out to Russian oligarchs and American monopoly men, you have to be able to stand the heat when you get burned, or you have to get out of Hell's Kitchen. You can suffer for awhile and have your integrity when you come out on top or you can climb on top of people and bully your way to the bottom, perhaps of the Hudson River if you're not too careful. Now, let's get cooking. Some like it hot.

If you listen closely enough, you can hear it. It comes as a whimper, a mutter, a stutter, a fluttering tinge of insecurity. It's there, right on the tip of your tongue. You know what I'm talking about. You just don't want to admit it. So, who is he? Go on, tell me. I won't judge. I promise. But I want to know his name. What is it? Is it Donald Trump? Is it Barrack Obama? Is it Joe Biden? Is it Joe Manchin? Is it Mitch McConnell? Perhaps you like to live on the wild side, so you chose Ron DeSantis. Perhaps you like to live on the mild side, so you chose Kirsten Sinema. Perhaps you like to live on the child side, so you chose Rand Paul. It could be anyone really. But he's out there. You know, your daddy. Almost everyone needs a daddy when it comes to politics. Not your biological father, that's different. I'm talking about your dada, the one you cheer for on the television when he promises you he'll take care of you next time for the fifth time in one election cycle. Yeah, good old Pop never lets down. Well, he does, but the mythos of the all-protecting father is too alluring to simply discard. You know, like Tim Allen from Home Improvement or Uncle Phil from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Whatever your pleasure. They come in all shapes, colors and sizes. Daddy knows best. My daddy told me that your political ideology is too stupid to be on the big boy news channels. My daddy knows better than your daddy. He makes more money! Daddy, daddy, daddy. Your superhero. Your knight in shining armor. Your Prince Charming. Your Superman. Your King Tut. Your daddy. Almost all of the great fictional characters in literature are daddies. Daddies rushing to the rescue of the dumb little children. Daddies racing against time to save the world from the crazy uncle. Daddies repairing broken down engines, and broken down toilets, and broken down lives in a vain attempt to save some broken down town. Daddy to the rescue! What's that in the sky? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the individual you see as your personal protection from the world around you. They are your rock and they are going to fix it for you, whatever is broken today that is. Most have one. Few will admit it. It is the person who tells them what to think and how to react to those who challenge them. Daddy dearest. My daddy let's me have ice cream for dinner. He says I'm all grown up like his friends on the television, and this year for Christmas my daddy's buying two ponies, and one them will have a chocolate saddle. My daddy loves me oh so very much. He loves me more than other daddies love their children. The point is that everyone has their own, personal bias. This bias is individualistic and nature, and requires a deep analysis of a person's personality before you can even begin to decide the sources of this bias. This is not a communal or a cultural bias. This resides deep within the subconscious mind, causing otherwise rational individuals to either block out information that opposes the source or to utilize said information in such way that bolsters support of the source, hence reinforcing the bias. Yet there are people out there who believe that everyone thinks alike, that they are all swayed in the exact same ways by different sources. These same people believe that social media has torn the nation asunder, dividing us and causing us to be so polarized that there is not opportunity of solid, meaningful discussion. But what exactly are the links between social media usage and radicalization? Where is the proof for this claim? Is there any at all? Well, it turns out that no, there is not a whole lot of scientific proof for this claim. In fact, all real world data indicates not only that echo chambers do not exist, but that social media use exposes people to a rich variety of sources including print, radio, television, and advertising, as well as independent social media channels. Is not this democracy? Is not this freedom of the press? Why demonize it? 

You hear the word everywhere wealthy white people gather to guzzle wine and wear odd dresses made of sustainably raised ostrich feathers. You hear it whenever wealthy inhabitants of cities like San Francisco or New York meet up for a night of whites only theater. You hear it every time Leonardo DiCaprio and his rich friends get together to make movies about how poor people are destroying the planet by eating and asking for housing. You hear it when you walk past some useless golf course on your way to the bus. You hear it when a politician representing a major corporation shamelessly pays a struggling single dad about eight bucks an hour to beg you for votes. You hear it whenever the center right social media overlords get their panties in a twist because someone acknowledges the failures of the Obama administration. You guessed it. “Progressive”. That’s so progressive. How progressive. My, my, my would you just look at how progressive he is? Helping the poor is progressive. Helping the chronically ill is progressive. Helping the mentally ill is progressive. See how I just put a dollar tree bandage on that dirty poor person’s gaping wound? See how I just called an ambulance for that person with epilepsy, saddling them with even more medical debt that I will later refuse to forgive? See how I just gave the wealthy even more tax breaks? See how I just created a bunch of jobs that are even shittier than the ones you had two years ago? See how I’m fixing infrastructure that I helped to destroy? See how I helped all the pretty white people with problems? Isn’t that progressive? Aren’t I progressive? How progressive my progress has progressed! What a progression! Yes, wealthy people love to boast about how “progressive” they are, about how much they helped the little guy, about how much they totally owned the conservatives. But, unfortunately, it’s all a mirage, a lie, a game. There has been no forward movement in terms of social justice in this country since the 1960s, and I do not expect there to be any real progression on civil rights until I am cold in my grave. See, in order to actually help people, you have to be a selfless person. You have to go into politics knowing that in order to truly help people, you’re going to have to tell a few of your rich friends to take a hike. But the rich people in this nation would never do such a thing. They all go to the same Ivy League colleges for fuck’s sake. What did you expect? Did you think that Joe Biden was really going to help you in any way that would actually get you out of poverty? Ha! Sorry, but I have to laugh. I have to laugh at ignorance these days. I have to laugh at gullibility. If I don’t laugh, then I will be depressed again. I have struggled with the depression that comes along with being rejected and disappointed for most of my life. I am too exhausted to put up with that any longer. So, I made a decision to just laugh the rejection and disappointment away from now on. That way the pain is dulled and I can keep having a reason to get in the morning. I hope you know that you can only upset people so much before they lash out at you. I hope you realize that people see you hoarding money and resources. I hope you are aware of the fact that inequality is not going anywhere, and that it is getting worse, not better. I hope you realize these things because I really don’t want to see you harmed. I want you to live a long life, even if I dislike your pompous lifestyle. But these regressive politics, this unwillingness to do anything for anyone who actually needs help, will be your undoing. I can’t stop that. I cannot prevent the criminality you are creating, the desperation you have unleashed unto this once great nation. There’s nothing I can do about it now. So, as you stare down the barrel of your own gun, painting yourself as some caring individual, I hope you remember that everyone can see right through your disguise before it is too late for even money to save you.

Division. Long division. Short division. Divisive division. Remissive division. Different sides. Different schemes. Differing opinions. Opposing opinions. Decomposing opinions. Difficult decisions. Ideological inhibitions. Contrasting tastes within culture clashing kitchens. Culture clashes in countries of origin. Tribal warfare in an urban setting. Dangerous ideas in unsettling settings. Suburban youth without good old fashioned parenting subletting their wedding for a set of newly pressed bedding. Tough days ahead. Tougher days behind. No future to speak of, so plenty of time to unwind and get wound by approaching deadlines. But everything’s fine. Everything’s grand. Oh barnacles, crime’s on the rise again. Top story today: a man took knife and held it on display for thirty six hundred of rent on delay. He robbed an old maid. She’s about sixty-five. Gave up on retirement for a cool nine to five and now she’s in the ER barely alive. Next story up is a rhyme about Phil, who overdosed just last weekend on pills. He graduated from college in 2003, lost twenty-two jobs, but couldn’t do twenty-three. At least he is nothing like Johnny the snake; he murdered his wife and left her in a lake. Division. Divisive. Just the facts please. If you don’t have anything boring to say, don’t say it all. We like our news boring round these here parts. If it ain’t boring, it ain’t news. Keep it straight. Clench those butt cheeks in your chair and read the teleprompter news. Put on a quarter pound of budget foundation and clog every pore in your face until the sweat runs away from your face news. Give the drunken failed actress turned weather lady a ten A.M. martini and let her go off script news. Smile so wide your lips crack into a thousand pieces news. Become so randomly angry about meaningless bullshit that even an ape with indigestion would tell you to relax news. Invite your weird loser uncle to come to work and do the sports report because his wife just left him news. Remember this is serious stuff. Lives are at stakes, and each and every one of those lives is a potential viewer. More views equals more likes. More likes equals better quality SEO. Better quality SEO equals more profit. Profit on top of profit, constantly compounding. What are people currently searching on Google? Division. Divisiveness. Civil War. The coming Civil Ware. The coming third World War. Armageddon. The end of days. America is worse than it has ever been and it’s because of division. America has never been divided before, not in this way, not according to the trust fund babies who own the news. Division. You can blame anything on division: crime, poverty, recessions, depressions, the whole nine yards, the whole kit and kaboodle. And then, there you sit, rocking back and forth, with no one to blame but some generic concept dreamed up by a trust fund baby. That's not allowed, too divisive. The end is near. The time is now. Time is up. Time is ticking. Tick tock. Tick tock. Have you seen Tiktok's stock? Have you gleaned the stock market drop? What is your dictation on inflation? Doesn't matter. Too divisive. Talk about something else. Scratch that. Talk about something wealth. Breaking news: a phony billionairess was deported for premiering on a show on Netflix. This just in: celebrities are eating food that they think you should eat if you are missing sleep every other week and have developed stiff peaks on your beak. One last thing: overpriced junk is leaving lumps on tiny runts for many months. Do you think that's just? Doesn't matter much. Too divisive. Think of something better, something blander, something older, something madder. No division. No decisions. No negative emissions emanating from our mission. Keep it happy. Keep it cool. Keep it snappy. Keep it true. Tell the truth, but not too much. Speak the speech and please be blunt. But not too much, nothing too much, never too much. Because that's divisive and dividers divide our division too much.

Be positive. Cheer up. Stiff upper lip. Straighten up. Calm down. Hold still! Relax!!! Right now. This instant. Don't worry. Be happy. Be active. Activate your happy feet. Actualize your every dream. See what no one else can see. Be whatever you want to be. Open up. Let go. Breathe. Rest. Be at one with the universe. Ease into your daily grind. Float above the negative energy on a cloud of roses. Drift into a kinder state of mind. Let go. Give in. Release. You are...in the moment. You have entered your happy place. You are the boss here. Be that boss. Make life your bitch. If life won't jive with your sunshine then teach life that you are in control. Take command. Man your post soldier! You're a warrior, a conqueror, a deal maker. You can do it. You know you can do it. So, get in there and give it another go. Fight another round. Try again! Go on! Quit wasting time and try! Try! Try!!! That's it. There you go. You got it. Good. Yes! Yes! Yes!!! No! No! What are you doing?! You had it! You had it that time! No excuses! You're not trying hard enough. That's all. Who care if you're exhausted? We've got some positivity to maintain here soldier! Oh, what was that? Oh, looks like we have a real funny guy here, huh? You think this is a game?! You better put that smile back on your face! Right now! Good. Great. Fantastic. Wonderful. Well done. Don't cry. Crying is for a losers, and you're a winner! Do you hear me? Crying is for the weak. Are you weak or are you centered? You better get your chi in order before I go medieval on your ass! Now breathe. Always remember to breathe. Seriously, stop crying. In and out. Out and in. In and out. Out and in. And we're breathing. We are breathing because breathing keeps us calm and being calm makes you more positive. Did you know that studies have shown that people who maintain a positive attitude are 567 times more likely to live to be 180. Seriously, I read about it somewhere. Don't ask questions. Just breathe. Questions are so negative. Children ask questions and they are such downers. Breathe. Breathe...Keep that head up. Don't be dull. You're so much better than that. I see so much in you. There's such potential there. Don't let it go to waste. Don't be boring. You have to love life, even the bad stuff. You've got to love it. You've go to be there. You've go to be present. You've got to flow. You've got to just...be, man. Don't let life make you upset. That's not the path to take, not the path that god wants you on. You can never get too upset. You've got to overcome that. You've got to be more than who you are. Don't hate. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Keep that chin up. Keep it moving. Keep working. Keep producing. You're almost there. Breathe! Slowly. That's too fast. You're not doing it right. That's why you don't feel well. You refuse to listen to instruction. You can't do that. That's self-destructive. You don't have time for all of that. You have better things to do. Think of all the responsibilities you have to live up to. You have to do something. You can't just sit there. Get up, get out and get moving before it's too late. You have to keep moving. Can't stop. Won't stop. Don't stop. Move, move, move!!! Breathe. Relax. You're so tense. You're holding tension in your jaw. Release the jaw. Let it slowly fall to the tips of your teats. Breathe. No, not that way! You're doing it wrong again. Relax. Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. In and...out. You've got this. You're doing well. You've come a long way in short period of time. I admire that about you. Keep it up and you just might get there. You just might make it. You're a go getter, a do-gooder, a pal, a friend of mine. Easy does it champ. Years from now, you'll be telling people what to do. And won't that be special? Won't that be neat? Won't that be swell? Sure, sure. Where's that smile? There it is! You have a great smile kid. People want to see that smile. Now smile wider...Wider... Wider... Wider. Breathe.

Once upon a time, in an America far, far away...liberal politicians had balls, big balls, the kind of balls that would make a porn star feel self conscious. They stood up for things, these ancient liberal politicians. They went up against big business. They broke the cycle of ho-hum American policy, and gave America a New Deal. Even though most of these social welfare funds ended up in the hands of whites, this massive economic stimulus drove a wave of job creation never before seen in America, and all people benefited from this massive economic stimulus. The people rejoiced, started families and went to work to create what we now refer to as the American middle class, something that had never existed before this New Deal, a class of Americans with spending money in their pockets that did not live in some swanky apartment in New York. This was new. This was innovative. This was, dare I say, ambitious. What a time it must have been to be an American. To not have to be perfect to eat was truly a radical idea at the time, but that changed. Now, many Americans are wondering if they will ever be able to reach that goal. It is quite unfortunate to see the mighty fall so low, to see the bold become so weak and docile. Today I look at the Democratic party and I wonder how they would respond to figures like Franklin D. Roosevelt or Robert Kennedy. Would they denounce them as being to radical or just brush them off their shoulders like they do with independents. It's hard to say, but I certainly do not think they would be pleased. Today's party is timid and mousy. They pay lip service to anyone who will listen to them. They make promises and then just give up on those promises as soon as the president loses a couple of points in his approval rating, and on and on it goes. These people in D.C., they like to think of themselves as "progressives". But the only thing progressive about them are their bowel movements. They have nothing to offer but empathy and a song from Hamilton. The truth is that the rampant deregulation still going on in the federal government is eroding the old New Deal, and that is pretty much the point nowadays. You forget that your politicians are owned by monopolies. Yeah, I said it, monopolies. I know mommy and daddy taught you that that is a dirty word, but it is the truth. These chuckle heads could not even help you if they really wanted to. The corporations are paying your weak ass politicians to defund the federal government, but you won't hear about that on the news because the news is sponsored by the same monopolies. They got you by the balls, as George Carlin would say. So, I don't waste time listening to other people's interpretation of whatever bill or policies that are passed because I know how fake this all is. Call me a pessimist if you like, but there is nothing pessimistic about being aware of your surroundings. Hell, some people are willing to pay some pretty goddamn good money for that. When did you fall out of touch with reality? When did you stop fighting for a piece of the American pie? Who's to say that you have to settle for this clownish style of politics? Why not stir the pot, upset the established order with some good old fashioned truth? What else do you have left? This is bigger than Democrats versus Republicans. This is about ushering in a new age of honesty in American politics. I don't pull punches on anyone. You have to deliver. No one lives forever, and so waiting is not an option. People talk a lot about patience in politics, just wait a little longer and all this nonsense. Do you know who's patient? Failures. Failures are very patient. They don't take risks. They lose in the end. You see them hovering around places like casino bars and creepy motels: out of luck, out of hope, out of tricks, out of chips, and out of their element. The Democrats consistently raise record amounts of money while failing when they actually get elected. It's not unreasonable to state a fact.  

Whenever impending doom is right around the corner, the calls for peace get louder and louder. This should be expected because those who cry for peace are actually telling you that they are not strong enough for conflict. Getting bossed around by cartoonish dictators, allowing them to set the terms of world affairs is not an act of preventing war, it is an act of cowardice. Cowardice does not stabilize anything. It does the opposite, communicating to your allies that you are not strong enough to lead. When you are strong you fight back, not with guns, but with political savvy. Who knows if the leaders of the day will live up to the task? It is hard to say because the leaders of today are people pleasers, and people pleasers are absolutely worthless. America is still refusing to get serious about fighting Putin’s propaganda machine. For years they have allowed this dictator in disguise to get away with lying at every turn. And why? Are we now affording constitutional rights to foreign dictators? Do we really want to protect the right to destabilize democracy? These are the difficult questions that adequate leaders ask themselves. The nation that wins the battle has the best defense. Defense wins wars, not offense. Offense is clumsy at best, and unpredictable at its worst. There is no need for a strong nation to commit war crimes, but there is a need for that nation to respond in kind. It is also worth wondering why the United States of America went out of its way to help make the war criminals in Russia fat and rich. These sanctions would be completely unnecessary had America kept its money out of Russia. You cannot give dictators billions of dollars and then expect them to play nice. This was a critical error of the American government, and whatever happens in Ukraine will be the fault of American government. When are we going to realize that you can’t have your cake and eat it too? If you make business dealings and conditional agreements with mad men then you too will feel their wrath eventually. We must have leaders who are perceptive enough to realize this. These clowns in suits who lead America today are push overs. Flash some fast cash in their faces and they will forget all about the war crimes any dictator has committed. The American government and the American business class should not be allowed to make backroom deals with nations who are hostile to America and its allies, but these backroom deals persist in nations like Russia, China and Iran, and will persist into the future. As I watched Putin’s military shell a holocaust memorial in Ukraine, I was reminded of Hitler’s war machine, how it had been funded almost completely by greedy leaders in the United States and the UK. Like it or not, America has blood on its hands here. It becomes difficult to say that you stand with Ukraine and if you are not even willing to recognize that the carnage in Ukraine was funded by these greedy American businessmen and leaders. NATO has also proven useless in this conflict. They say they are preventing WWIII by essentially giving one of Europe’s largest nuclear facilities to Russia. I guess people with peace on their minds are willing to put the lives of billions at risk for it. Are you willing to pay that price for "peace"? Is it really peace at all? I suppose some people believe that if just one person is beating the other to death that peace has arisen between the two parties. I hear the word peaceful thrown around a lot while people die. "He looks so peaceful" onlookers say as they stand over corpses. "Finally, she's a peace" a person says after their relative has died of cancer. Peace is a dangerous concept. It makes people complicit, lazy and downright stupid. Bullies are always offering deals. They say that, if you give them your lunch money, then they will leave alone. But that never actually happens. They come back and bully you for even more money. But what happens when the lunch money is all gone? Your move. 

No one will ever be able to take your spirituality from you, not even you, unless you go through some sort of trauma to make you question your beliefs. I have no interest in traumatizing people. I don't care what anyone believes. But the facts are the facts, and both religiosity and optimism boil down to nothing more than fantasy. You have to be committed to a fantasy in order for it to play out right, one might even say devoted. You have to buy into it. You must suspend your disbelief. Whether or not you are ever able to get that disbelief back depends on many factors: your income level, your education, your resourcefulness, your hunger for life, etc. The willingness to disbelieve, to not accept the simple answers to life's difficult questions, creates a desire to live life to its fullest in ways that religion simply cannot offer, that optimism only makes hollow promises about. Disbelief leaves room for creation and innovation. Within a spiritual context, everything is mapped out for you in advance. There is a reason for everything in religion, even horrible things like rape, torture and poverty. In the harsher versions of religion, people are born to suffer. Suffering is the retribution of almighty, powerful god and his wrath is just, regardless of human laws or customs. In newer versions of religion that wish to sidestep this obvious problem with spirituality, we choose to punish ourselves by denying to recognize the power of the almighty, kind of like how an abusive husband abandons his child so he can sew his royal oats in the garden of a strip club. In either version it becomes simple to just say well, god willed it so, and therefore, there is nothing we can do about it. Optimism compounds this effect, causing those who are irreligious to simply dismiss those in poverty because they believe that anyone who works hard enough can "make it", even though the number of well paying jobs has decreased incrementally since the 1990s, and even though barriers to careers like pandemics and chronic illness are beyond anyone's control. Optimism causes empathy to become unnecessary because anyone who is not optimistic is now making themselves poor. The circumstances are never bad under an optimistic worldview. You always just have to look on the bright side of every awful thing. This makes rich people feel better about themselves while forcing poor people into simply accepting their "fate" or "god's will". Allowing someone to starve to death becomes much easier for people when they are wrapped in this safety blanket of "destiny". Of course there are religious reform movements that seek to take more active roles in defeating poverty, but they have been slow to really take up the task of actually housing people or at least getting them jobs that will pay for long term housing. Religiosity in other wealthy nations around the world is relatively low, averaging at about a quarter of the nation, while in America over half of the country states that religion is very important to them. This is a dire problem because it will simply allow apathy about poverty to perpetuate itself. It will also lead to the depletion of American wealth, which will further embolden nations like Russia to make irrational aggressions that upset the world order, and create avoidable destruction.  

The internet is often said to be a dangerous place for your mental health, but people often leave out why that is. It is not the porn or the violent imagery that could drive you absolutely bat shit crazy, but the constant stream of fake diagnoses from self proclaimed experts that can drive you mad. Everywhere you go online someone is trying to sell you something. The on demand mental health cartel currently ranking at the top of the search engines are doing you far more harm than good. By selling you products that don't work they initiate the placebo effect inside of you, making you believe that you are feeling better, while you are really getting worse. This mental health cartel is composed, for the most part, of complete amateurs who are looking to make a quick buck off of your misfortune. Social media platforms like Tiktok, Youtube, Twitter, and knowingly promote incorrect factoids about mental health all the live long day. One of the ways they do this is by stating that if you have certain symptoms then you also are suffering from a chronic mental illness that your family, friends and doctors have never noticed. They imply that, if you have certain character traits, then you are crazy, and that you need to do something about it urgently. But who benefits from such random and seemingly superfluous diagnoses. There are two main benefactors. Of course Big Pharma is playing a role, and in a bigger way than many realize. But there is also what I like to call Big Quackery: chumps like Joseph Mercola or Ray Peat who offer "alternative healing" methods. Though there is indeed a ban on the promotion of prescription drugs, there is no ban whatsoever on promoting over the counter drugs or herbal supplements some yahoo just yanked out of their backyard and melted into a pill or vile. On social media, Big Pharma has found a way around that ban. How? Legalese. Most of you do not read the terms and service agreement of your favorite social media platforms, and corporate goons are well aware of this. Check out this little doozy that I found in the fine print: "...Pharma companies are, however, allowed to share information impartially on social media, so long as they comply with the code." Now, riddle me this Batman. How on earth are companies worth billions of dollars supposed to promote anything impartially? They can't! That is an impossibility. These big companies are always trying to make money. A sales representative who works for a major medical corporation cannot even take a dump without trying to sell depends to the person in the next stall. But don't take my word for it; hear the awful truth from the internet marketers themselves: “We recently worked with a large pharmaceutical company on a social listening program,” says Page. “In developing a new drug and therefore a new therapeutic pathway, the company realised that by understanding patients’ experience of a condition, they could then use that information to close the gap between their own medical affairs team, marketing, the healthcare professionals they were targeting and the patients as the end user. The upshot, he says, is that the drug company will be able to go beyond their own science, and offer the patient meaningful real-world clinical benefits." Hey kids, I have a question for you, what is beyond science when it comes to your mental health? Come on, I know you know it. It starts with a B and ends with a T. That's right, bullshit! Great job little ones. I knew you could do it. But don't just blame big Pharma, the alternative healers are even more prevalent and efficient at using this technique. "In 2014, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson took a hard hit to the head during a conference championship game against the Green Bay Packers. The following day, however, Wilson had no serious head injury." (Quartz) He attributed the success of his rapid recovery to a supplemental water concoction. Buyer beware.    

Hey, I have a proposition for you. What if? That's it. That's all. It can't get any simpler than that. What if? What if things had happened differently? What if you had been smarter, wiser, prettier, healthier, sweeter, nicer, kinder, higher, more...successful? What if? What if you had the goods? The stuff? The know how? You know what I mean? What if you had been just a little better, just a litter taller, just a little bit more than what was expected? What if you had been there? What if you had done that differently? Would things be any better? Would they really? Now, take it one step further. What if I could give it to you? What if I could give you everything you always wanted? Well, I can. That's right. You can get everything. All you have to do is keep an open mind. You see everything is everywhere. You're just not seeing it there. But it's there, everything you want, and I can show it to you. I can give you eyes to see. You see, it could be anything: money, power, fame, luck, respect, empathy. You could have it all because it's all right there staring you in the face. It's yours now. Keep it. No cost to you. Consider it a gift. You see, if you have an open mind then you're already rich. You're already powerful. You're already the most attractive person you know. Just keep an open mind, and you'll see it. Others may not, but that is because those people are close minded. But don't worry. They can't stop you from being who want to be anymore. And besides, they're just haters anyway. It doesn't matter what that say. All that matters is what you need. Is it starting to make sense yet? You see, life is perception and you have the power to change your perception any time you like. You don't need pills or costly therapies for that. Only you choose how you see yourself. The problem is that you are obsessed with the ways others see you. You need them to tell you you are the best. You crave adoration, not accomplishment, and that gets in your way. That's why you always have to make it clear to yourself that you are all that really matters. You take care of yourself first then worry about others later. That is the way to happiness. Or maybe it's not. Maybe that is just your selfishness manifesting itself. Maybe all of this self care stuff is a bit vain. Perhaps we're so obsessed with our own well being that we fail to see those suffering around us. But, oh wait, you don't care much for suffering. Let's change the subject. Let's talk more about how wonderful and unique you are. I know you love that right? Being told how smart you already are, how kind you already are, how perfect you already are. Scratch that. No one's perfect, but you come pretty close. That sounds a bit more genuine. Right? Right? Right? You tell me. You tell me what you like to hear. You control everything after all. Go on, end this little story with a guest appearance by Shrek or Kayne West or whatever the hell you like this moment. Wait, wait, wait. I have it. I finally have what you need. I promise this time. Here it is. A toilet. Why? Because you need to take everything I just said, chuck in the porcilean merry go round and give a nice sturdy flush. Your perception is meaningless. It does not alter reality in any way. You just don't see it well enough. That does not mean it is not constant. That does not mean that reality is malleable. Certain things just are. They can't be changed. The sun causes cancer. San Francisco is sinking. Gender reveal parties are a more boring version of ancient fertility rituals. We can't change some things. That makes a lot of people uncomfortable. It makes them uncomfortable because they are biologically programed to survive. Some say this is a bad thing, but it is not. You should never keep an open mind because it makes you lazy. It makes you complicit. It teaches you that gangsters are respectable individuals. Your open mind leads to consequences. It leads to war. Now kindly flush the toilet. It stinks in here.  

Buy! Buy today! If you can't buy now, buy later. Download the app so that you can buy when you're working, when you're relaxing, when you're exercising, when you're being lazy, when you're anxious, when you're calm, when you're mellow, when you're out of sight, when you're up, when you're down, when you're feeling blue, and when you're feeling screwed there's only one thing you need to do. Buy baby! Just buy, buy, buy. Shop till you drop. Shop till you can't stop. Take out that credit card. If you don't have one, you surely can get one. Step right up and have a seat. Sit on down and rest your feet. The customer is always sweet, always right, always nice, and certainly the last you'll ever beat. Have I ever told you how good you would look in that dress? Those jewels? This three story suite. Come on over and take a peek. You know you want it. You know you need it. You got to have it. You know we mean. So come on by. Take a gander and let if fly. Let it go. Treat yourself. Have a bite. Don't be shy. Give it a try. It's better than good at prices you just can't beat. What are waiting for? Try today. Subscribe. Enjoy. Delight yourself. Surprise yourself. Take a chance on me. You can do it. I know you can. Trust yourself. Have you lost weight? You look great. Are you in movies? I love the way you speak. Need a car? Need a home? Don't have credit? How about a loan? I'll need that back in forty weeks. Wait, don't go. Don't be rude. Don't be crass. Don't be a downer. Live a little. Grab life by the ass! You heard me chief. You're a star. You're the best. You're different from the rest. So have some faith and take a leap. Don't take a leak or you'll be up shit's creek! Ha, ha, ha! Seriously, what do you need? I got it all. Everything you'll ever need. Feeling low? Feeling slow? Feeling eighteen stories down below? Don't you worry. Don't you weep. I have just the pills you need, fact and science free. Take some ginseng. Take some ginger. Take some Visine in your sphincter. Don't like rules and regulations? How about some fascinating allegations? How about some relieving procrastinations? How about some right wing accusations? How about you lose your sense of self? How about you act like everybody else? Or you could be unique! Whatever you want. What you like. Whatever thought's in your little mind. Hear me out. Hear me speak. Hear my pitch and please don't bitch because it's my right to watch you sink. And it's your choice. And it's your voice. You are the one. You are a king. You are a queen. So it's your fault when you default. It's your decision to go into remission. It's your progression when you're in recession. It's your problem and we'll solve them for fifteen dollars a week. Only fifteen dollars a week! What a deal. What a steal. So much money, so little time. So many wallets that will all be mine. So many families, so many lives destroyed, distraught and downsized. But it's better than it seems. It's a wonderful world. It's a beautiful day. What a beautiful girl. But what did she say? I'm paying attention. I'm hearing you out. You sound better than you think. You should be a singer. You should be an actor. You should pursue your dreams. But there's a long list of things you'll need. I'm here to help. I'm here to create wealth. I will make you the me you want to be. I will help you be the person you hate the most. Let's have a toast! This is the first day of the rest of your life. Let's start it off with a bang, with boom, with a pow, with a zoom. You're the champ. You're the greatest. You own it all and you have the latest. Good for you. You did it bud. You made it to the big time, the big show, the grand hotel. Well done. Bravo. Come on in anytime and we'll treat you the way you deserve to be treated. That's right, you deserve everything you've ever needed. So come and get it. Don't be defeated. Spend, spend, spend. Buy, buy, buy baby! Buy, buy, buy! Oh and if you ever end up jail we'll be here to front your bail. 

America, along with most other "civilized" nations of the world, has a long, rich and bountiful history of turning people off sexually. Indeed, our earliest ancestors, when not stealing land from brown people, busied themselves discouraging boners and encouraging chronic vaginal dryness. Though there has been a large attempt to revise the very real American history of sexual hesitancy, the documents of the puritans speak for themselves. Jason Dikes, Adjunct Associate Professor of History at Austin Community College, maps this out beautifully in Massachusetts Sex Ways, "Their (the puritans) criminal codes made adultery a capital crime, and at least three people were actually hanged for it in the Puritan colonies." Remember that the next time some Christian apologist tries to lecture you on how much more civilized and polite than puritans were than modern folk. "When cases of adultery occurred, it was not uncommon for entire communities to band together and punish the transgressors. In the town of Ipswich, Massachusetts, for example, a married woman named Sarah Roe had an affair with a neighbor named Joseph Leigh while her mariner-husband was away at sea...no fewer than thirty-five Ipswich neighbors went to court against them and gave testimony that communicated a deep sense of moral outrage...the erring couple were found guilty of “unlawful familiarity” and severely punished. Joseph Leigh was ordered to be heavily whipped and fined five pounds, and Sarah Roe was sent to the House of Correction for a month, with orders that she was to appear in Ipswich meetinghouse on lecture day bearing a sign, “For My baudish Carriage,” written in “fair capital letters.” In this case as in so many others, the moral code of Puritan Massachusetts was not imposed by a small elite upon an unwilling people; it rose from customs and beliefs that were broadly shared throughout the Puritan colonies." Yet again, we see this idea of a few bad apple spoiling the whole bunch being incorrect and misleading. Religion's hatred of sexual experimentation seems a whole lot less threatening when it is just a few spoil sports, but that is rarely ever the case. What happens far more often is that the vast majority of society goes on a rabid hunt for sexual purity every time it feels the need to do so. Such is the case with today's witch hunters, whether it be the ones in Texas who are currently investigating the parents of transgender children, or the ones in California currently jailing women for being on drugs while pregnant. This is all an expression of America's deep discomfort with all that is sexual. Even today, the common stereotype of those who view pornographic images or who express themselves sexually is that they are somehow less moral than those who do not. Of course no one takes the time to explore these topics further, but simply adopts the popular puritanical opinion on the matter. The problem is that mounting evidence is disproving that are any real ills associated with pornography in particular. Conservatives have claimed that pornography decreases a man interest in family life, for example, but several studies have shown that to be a lie. Pornography has been demonstrated to actually make men more intimate with their partners and seems to make family life more desirable for men as well. Sex crimes also decrease when porn is made readily available. This has been attributed to a kind of cooling effect that porn has on human desire, causing one to experience the pleasure of a specific taboo act without actually having to engage in it. Rape and pedophilia have seen dramatic drops in frequency since the 1970s, for example. As you know, the sexual revolution occurred in the sixties. The takeaway here is not that porn cures everything, but that it seems to make sexual desire less of a problem, and more of a personality trait. But your noisy pastors will never accept this because it is contrary to their religious upbringing.   

Today we are taught that propaganda is evil, something that we should avoid at all costs. Perhaps this is true for some. Perhaps some people are not inclined to think for themselves, and so must be shielded, much like children, from certain ideologies. But for those of us who are skilled in critical analysis, we do a huge disservice to society by ignoring propaganda because, if we do not analyze and critique it, then no one will. Or, even worse, amateurs will analyze propaganda for us, inevitably misinterpreting the intent of propagandists, and creating even more misinformation in the process. In recent years, there has been a huge surge in amateurish attempts to decode propaganda much like the era of the Cold War, when grumpy old men went searching for communism at rock concerts. Such people have no idea to detect propaganda, and so they lash out blindly at things they despise. But today it is mainly Christian propagandists who focus on the ills of rock music. But there is another set of amateurs that are just as fond of creating wild, overly simplistic explanations for why wars are waged on the mind. This set of amateur propaganda sleuths consider themselves to be members of the scientific community, even though most of the time they are not. They also consider themselves to be much smarter than the Christian witch hunters they evolved from, but they are not any closer to discovering the truth than Alex Jones. This second "more reasonable" group are the people who write internet articles online in a vain attempt to explain why problems occur. These are the same people who brought you overly simplistic arguments like "cancel culture bad" and "all police are heroes". They are the same people who call for peace after guns have been fired in your direction unprovoked. They are the same people who argued that prosecuting a sitting president who clearly incited a riot live on national television should be prosecuted by state authorities without the assistance of the federal government. They are wishy-washy, and they are full of ignorance; yet they have massive followings and so control the national narratives on complex issues. These people, these elitists swine with excess curiosity and no place to put it, are the people who brought you the famous "echo chambers" argument. The argument essentially states that the reason people are so misinformed politically is because they only ever get information from people who share their political opinions, mostly on social media. This argument is incorrect for many reasons. For example, it assumes that social media users are misinformed, that they are not acting in their own interest politically, and that they are ignoring mainstream media sources altogether. Now, if I were to make the exact same argument about a particular religious institution, that the churches that people go to are indoctrinating them and turning them into lazy idiots, you would call me a bigot. If I made the exact same argument about a particular race of people, claiming that race was uninformed because they chose to hang out with people of their own race, you would call me a racist. So, why is it that elitist academics are able to claim, with no evidence, that social media makes people dumber? Oh, and do you know where these academics are making this claim? On social media of course. Where else can you blurt out idiotic nonsense and have people throw money at you for it? So, I am supposed to believe that social media only changes the minds of those who are not academics because academics immune to fallacious arguments and bias? Well, I don't believe that, and in this episode I prove very clearly that echo chambers do not exist, and that people are not as easily influenced as we have been led to believe. There is no proof that all or even most members of social groups share similar thoughts. So why do people want us to believe this? Why are those who scream for unity causing such unneeded division?   

In 2007, things looked pretty bleak for America, bleaker than anyone could remember. President George W. Bush Jr. just presided over eight years of crusader like conquest of the middle east. He also oversaw what was at the time the worst economic crash since the great depression. Congress was pretty much a joke as well. The law making body seemed complete in line with the president, despite some pretty inspiring speeches about challenging the status quo. So it was with great excitement and relief that young people and old people, white people and black people, immigrants and citizens, Christians and Muslims, rich people and poor people, and those from all backgrounds flocked to the polls in 2008 to elect a candidate who would fix everything, a candidate who stoop up for change. That candidate was Barrack Hussein Obama, and it appeared, at the time, that he was everything that George W. Bush was not. Obama did not boast about his religious preferences as Bush the younger did. He was not prone to the same gaffes as his predecessor. He was not always talking about terrorism, but instead talked about real policies to change the landscape of America. He was going to take action to save America from the path to embarrassment it had been sent upon by the radical right. And so it was that Barrack Hussein Obama was sworn in as president in 2008. People wept. They hugged. They cheered. They applauded. Great joy spread amongst the land. It was as if something wonderful had been accomplished. It was as if we finally did something in America in the technocratic era. Finally, change had come to America. But it was not the change that everyone expected. Instead what happened was a new age of complicity and weakness. It was as if, after Barrack Obama had been elected president, the populous fell into a great stupor that I had never witnessed before. It was as if everyone had fallen in love with the idea of a black president. It was as if people were content with anything this man did. He waged the same wars. He saved the rich and let the poor starve as his predecessor had. He refused to even discuss a more progressive form of welfare that would actually get people out of poverty as his predecessor did. He even jump, skipped and hopped on down to the police union and gave them a nice pat on the ass, as his predecessor did. He was in bed with the pentagon and the elite bankers and the health insurance companies as his predecessor had been. Yet, for some odd reason, people were happier. They felt as if this man was actually doing something for them. But absolutely none of these promises were kept. Even the healthcare was not at all ambitious, and actually ended up being a watered down version of the bill the Clintons proposed in the nineties. This should have been a tremendous letdown, but many people refused to recognize it. And, even scarier, many of us who did recognize it went absolutely insane and defected to far right modes of thought. I mean, if it's everyman for himself in America, if the so-called liberals will not even fight for the poor, then why not just go ahead and be a dick conservative so you can get ahead in the world? Why not just become the thing you hate? Why not get revenge on the people who lied to you? Some people will never ask themselves these questions because they lead lives of comfort and comfort makes you ignorant to the storm that is coming, the war that is brewing, the end that is beginning. You can never get comfortable in American politics. You can never trust your candidate too much. It makes you look pompous and uninformed when you say, "well, at least he's better than the last guy." What if the people voting are not trying to be better? What if they are addicted to making things worse? You have to take action to save people from their own bad choices. You cannot sit aside and watch the world burn because the flames will eventually spread to your house too. In politics, you go big or you go home. 

Close your eyes. Take slow, deep, annoying breaths. You know, the kind internet gurus tell you to take. That's it. Breath deeper. Deeper...Deeper...Let all of the stress in the world melt from your body. Do not think about your career, your problems, your relationships, or anything else that matters dearly to you. No, focus on me. Focus on my voice. And, as you focus on my voice (or my words; whatever, you get the point), I want you to imagine that you are in the middle of an empty forest. I don't know why you would be in the forest. I mean, being alone in an empty forest with no equipment, food or survival gear pretty much means you are going to do die. Wow, how stupid. Who the hell thought that one up? Probably some hipster wearing organic sneakers smoking hash out of corn cob pipe. Well, most internet gurus live in the city so how about you picture yourself in an empty food court or a Costco...In fact, yeah, let's go with Costco. You're in an empty Costco. Move around in the Costco. Feel the different things inside of the Costco. Admire their bland, but affordable furniture and clothing. Now, you are at one with the nature of the city, the city of Build Back Never Land. Everything is affordable, not cheap, but affordable here. Nothing is dramatic. Everything is gray and taupe. Flowers only grow for funerals. Fairies are fire roasted for your convenience. Yes, welcome to Build Back Never Land, a glorious land of opportunity for the rich people you see on television, and a miserable pit of despair for everyone else. There is plenty of hope here, for all there is to do is hope when you have nothing, and when you know nothing will ever come your way again. The trains always leave early here in Build Back Never Land. The paranoia is pure, one hundred percent adrenaline, none of that weak ass anxiety crap. Don't mind the neo nazis; they only ever hurt poor people anyway. Besides, Joe Manchin says they aren't real, and that has to count for something because CNN says it does. Just look at the flat screen TVs! They get bigger every year, while your salary gets smaller. Finally, we all live in a place full of hope. Finally, we got the change we were promised. Slight change, minimal, dismal, disappointing change. False hope, agonizing, infuriating, false hope. Finally, they gave us all what we really wanted, misery. You know, few people realize that it's over when it's over. Boxers make foolish "comebacks" when they are far past their time; they embarrass themselves on television and lose what dignity they had left. As Samuel L. Jackson would say, "That's pride fucking with your ass." The truth is you can lose just like anyone else. I am not saying you are not on a hot streak. You may be on fire for all I know, but remember, it all ends. And isn't it interesting that, in the end, we all are left with our thoughts of "what if"? What if you had been more noble, more honorable, wiser, stronger? Those are thoughts that will plague the leaders of today on their deathbeds. You may think that is awful, but it is just. Those who fail to deliver on their promises are failures, and they suffer because of it. In future generations this encourages endurance, but today we must live with the weak leaders we have. Now imagine you are on a beach. The love of your life walks gleefully toward you, scantily clad and with open arms. You hear the sand form around their feet as they place a hand upon your cheek. You feel love in all of its glory and confusion. Then they look you in the eyes and say, "you are not good enough to accomplish your dreams; be practical and take the job at Costco." Welcome to Build Back Never Land, where everyone always dreams because being awake is a nightmare.  

What kind of heartless bastard just leaves a person in their time of need? Where does such a person get off? What gives them the right to be so callous, so heartless, so unkind? It could be arrogance. It could be ignorance. It could be that they are just a complete dick. But that is beside the point. This episode is not about the people who do the abandoning. They get enough attention. They all have fancy jobs. Let them have their cake and choke on it too. This episode is concerned with those who have been abandoned. You know them. You may choose not to see them, but you know they are out there. Perhaps it gives you pleasure, knowing that you made it and they did not. Perhaps it pains you to know that there are those out there less fortunate than you. But they are still out there. I am one of them. My words are not meant for your entertainment alone. They are meant to warn you of the dangers to come, to protect you from the monster that I once was, to shield you from the rise of many more monsters, far more terrifying than I ever could have been. You may think I am a spoil sport, raining on your champagne parade, but you are wrong, dead wrong. Soon, a time will come when you will wish you had taken my advice about increases in welfare, about universal basic income, about prison reform, about police reform, about kindness, about decency. But when that hour comes, I will no longer be able to protect you from the horror that is to come. It is interesting to note that the Spanish Flu pandemic did not end until 1920, three years after its outbreak in 1918. And I know you do not want to hear that; I know that you are tired of hearing warnings. We all grow tired of those with wisdom. They begin to sound like dictators to us. And who am I to tell you how to live your life anyway? After all, if I had anything important to say, I would be rich. Right? Is that right? Is that really right? Or is that just another coping mechanism you have developed to protect you from impending doom? Have you truly bested those who are beneath you? Or are you depending on those beneath you to hold you above water, just a little longer? A sewer is filled with excrement and disease, but without a sewer, you are nothing. Without a sewer the stench of your bodily fluids would fester in your nose, driving you mad until you eventually died from bacterial infections, from viruses, from black mold. Everything in life has a structure, a way it is supposed to work, and in that structure there are support systems. The poor support the rich just as much as the rich support the poor. That is the way of things. You cannot change that. Sure, you can replace a worker with robots, but you cannot keep your business open without patrons. They system now has no structure. The balance is off. And the all that is keeping this sinking ship afloat is malfunctioning, decaying, eroding, dying...slowly. How will you survive the fall? Will you be around to survive it? Only time will tell. And when that time comes you will wonder, why was I so selfish, so careless, so shallow? But I can give you the answer now. You are not meant to live forever. You are designed to destroy yourself, to self-destruct. That is the real system. The real structure is meant to decay. It is natural. It keeps us safe from the would be dictators, the psychopaths, the intellectuals. This everlasting decay weakens the evil of the human and sends them crushing down to earth like a fallen angel or like Nimrod, whichever you prefer. Yes, the fall is coming, and oh what a glorious sight it will be, to see you there with me, to hear you cry in the cold of night as I once did, wondering if you have any value as once did. And, as I once did, you will gaze into darkness and be greeted by your own child like laughter. Then we will finally understand each other, and together, we will gaze upon the earth and say, "this is the wretched fate that we have made; what a glorious horror it is."

When I was younger, I remember people, for the most part anyway, keeping their big fat noses out of other people's business, especially when that business had to do with the bedroom. In those days I probably heard the phrase "I don't care what people do in the privacy of their own homes" uttered at least five times a day, but usually even more than that. Now that I have matured, I realize that all those people were just lying. The truth is that privacy does not exist. Whilst people pretend that privacy is sacred, that sacred ground is violated with prying eyes whenever it is advantageous to those with something to prove. It is, for some reason that I have not yet figured out (I will eventually), very important to some people, many of them wealthy people, to prove that having a family is a burden. These people loathe what they have termed "traditional" relationships. They blame people who choose to stay with one person and, god forbid, to have children with that person, for every ill in the world from depression to global warming. They sit in their one room studio apartments and write essays on the perils of parenthood, and the misery of marriage. They are the enlightened ones, the people who have been blessed with eyes to see the supposed sham of love. This idea that family is the bad guy does not fit any particular ideology. There is no mass movement to destroy the family. Instead there are many wealthy people in the world with too much time on their hands, and idle hands often lead to irrational acts of jealously. Contrary to popular opinion, money does not insulate you from heartbreak. Relationships do not magically improve once Sally can buy the dress she has always wanted or once Mike can finally afford to buy his favorite video game or once you finally buy the kids all of they toys in the goddamn world. Objects do not make people all that happy. If they did there would be at least some difference between the divorce rate of poor people and that of rich people. But wealthy people and poor people get divorced at similar rates. But while it may be true that money cannot buy happiness, it can certainly buy publicity. When the average citizen goes through a divorce or has an affair only a few people ever find out about it; thus, the bitter party in this situation only has a few shoulders to cry on. The wealthy, on the other hand, can devote entire movies, novels and even political campaigns to whining about their negative experiences with relationships. This negative publicity about the supposed evils of love has been pumped into the minds of the populous so that now it has gone mainstream. It is now perfectly acceptable for single people to state that they are happier than married people, that they are contributing more to society, that they care more about the planet, but the evidence for these claims is, as usual, nonexistent. And while the internet may be full of bullshit articles about how miserable families are and how happy single people are, a whole lot of bullshit does not amount to verifiable proof. Many of the studies on happiness in relationships are not peer reviewed. Many more were based on compromised data. How does one even begin to measure happiness in a person? The whole notion of figuring out who is the happiest is insane. To be frank, I am sick and tired of people telling me whether or not I am happy. I am sick and tired of people reducing my relationship to a "social construct". I am sick and tired of people acting like my child is "a burden on the environment". I do not care if anyone has children or not, but I do care about impressionable young people being sold the lie that children make you unhappy, that choosing to have sex with only one person is some kind of crime against humanity. You have the right to do as you like, but so do I. I choose to recognize that no one is happy all of the time, and that completely uprooting your life to fit into some cult of love haters is a waste of time. 

To the wealthy life is a game, a joke, a bit of fun, a romp through the forest, a frolic in the roses. Lost a relationship? No biggie, buy a new one. Suffered a serious setback career wise? No problem, just call up your rich friends and they’ll help you out. Failed at achieving your dreams? Go to sleep and dream up another one. That is the mindset of American aristocracy. Just get over it. Move on. Forget about it. Try harder. Do better. Be kinder. Harder, better, faster, stronger! These empty, childish phrases spill from the mouths of wealthy people like excrement from a person with explosive diarrhea who lives on nothing but bean and cheese burritos, and their sage words are likewise flushed down the toilet into a dark and abandoned sewer filled with disease. The advice of the wealthy is the real pandemic, and their uninspired, insincere drivel has infected America. The wealthy do not know how to give advice, and so they are a cancer on the world of ideas, a malignant tumor destined to destroy everything it touches slowly and painfully. “Don’t take life too seriously”, they say. But life is serious. It ends suddenly, unexpectedly and often times confusingly. Jeffery Smith died. He shot himself after the riot. No one cared. Those who commit suicide are shunned in America, even in death. And now he’s gone, and all the well-wishing in the world, all the money in the world, all the positive vibes in the world, all the can do spirit of the world, will never bring him back. But the wealthy do not understand this. They believe that they will be able to pay off the grim reaper. But that is simply not an option. Death will find them, just as it will find us. If you fail to realize how serious life really is then you are well on your way to your appointment with death, perhaps even running a little early. But you cannot argue with the wealthy; those with money and privilege are set in their ways, and they change for no one. Perhaps the best illustration of this in literature can be found right in that bible you never read, but always preach. “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:18–25). I’ve never tried to shove a camel through a needle before, but it sure sounds pretty difficult. How about this little portion from Matthew? “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I am not sure if I forgot the last part of that last excerpt or if I had just glossed over it before, but it sure does speak to me. Whether or not Jesus was god, you have to admit that he was brilliant with words. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.” Ain’t that the truth. Personally I am poor and so my treasure is my family, and that is where my heart is. We all know where the heart of America’s leaders are, and it ain’t got nothing to do with family. The heart of America’s leaders is stored in a bank account, on the stock market, at a fortune 500 company, in a viral video on Tik Tok, on a stage full of pretense. So I was not surprised to see that Broadway made its big debut on Congress during the commemoration of the terrorist attacks on the US Capitol on January 6th 2021. I was disgusted. I was sickened. I was disappointed, but not surprised. How disrespectful must you be to promote your favorite musical during an event that was supposed to remember people who died? Well, keep having fun America. Keep dancing in the dark. Keep dreaming. But if you are going to keep your treasure locked up around Broadway producers who get paid to destroy dreams for a living, then you have no heart.

Today there will, undoubtedly, be a treasure trove of tributes to the late and great Sidney Poitier, and rightfully so. Poitier was an inspiration to all colors and creeds, but, much more than that, he represented the radical notion that entertainment could be a little less white, and a little more brilliant because of it. Poitier’s unique experience as a Bahamian American added new flavor to the doldrums of modern American cinema. His roles were not contained or mousy. He exploded onto the camera with a sense of purpose and eloquence that I have not seen many actors embody since. But many of the other remembrances dedicated to Poitier will focus on his career in film so, as usual, I will take the road less traveled and attempt to explain what the man represented to the black community as a whole, and to America. In 1964 Sidney Poitier became the first actor to win an Oscar in the best actor in a leading role category for “Lilies in a Field”, a historic accomplishment considering the fact that Hollywood has traditionally cast black actors as servants, derelicts and criminals. So his stunning achievement was received by blacks everywhere as proof that black people could truly accomplish anything. Here is what Poitier had to say about his iconic and shocking win. “Because it is a long journey to this moment, I am naturally indebted to countless numbers of people.” Doubtless Poitier’s reference to “a long journey” is partially a reference to the tiresome and often completely unnoticed work that goes into being a black artist in America. Black artists are second tier in entertainment, thought to be lesser than white entertainers and often dismissed when it comes to roles that are considered intelligent. Instead of engineers, American black entertainers are chosen to be bank robbers. Instead of faithful husbands and fathers, black entertainers are cast as heartless and unfeeling megalomaniacs who jump from relationship to relationship in an attempt satiate their seemingly never-ending lust. Instead of head chefs, black entertainers are forced to play fast food employees, and on and on it goes. You get the point. I wonder what was going on in Mr. Poitier’s mind when he was chosen to receive an honorary academy award in 2002, yet another year dedicated to Denzel Washington being the only black actor in America deemed worthy of more educated roles. He certainly chose his words carefully when he said that a “handful of visionary American filmmakers, directors, writers and producers” made his career possible. A handful is not very much; the word “handful” is used to draw attention to a scanty amount that is not sufficient to get the job done. Now that Poitier is gone and that handful of visionaries that helped him has grown even smaller, I really do feel for all the black talent in the entertainment industry that will go unappreciated and unheard. It is sad that progress can only be made with the permission of large industries like Hollywood. It is sad that talent, in America anyway, simply is not enough to make an impression. And it is even sadder that people today have grown so coldhearted that, whenever a person like me speaks out against bias and nepotism in the entertainment industry, that person only gets a roll of the eyes and middle finger. And so I give you my farewell to charm, my farewell to a generation of black dignity and self-reliance that will likely never return, and my final farewell to roles that degrade and stereotype black people as nothing more than servants or criminals. Farewell to it all once and for all. You inspired me to be an actor Mr. Poitier; if only I had been born a few generations earlier, it only that handful of visionaries was still around, if only the Civil Rights movement was still taken seriously instead of being pimped out by hustler preachers, insincere celebrities and social media influencers, that inspiration may have become a reality. But I thank you nonetheless. Goodnight black prince.

All systems are ready. Brain hacks have been initiated. Common human myths such as individuality and imperfection have been eradicated. Relaxation has been efficiently discouraged. Hard work and endless suffering have been sufficiently programed into the hard drive of humanity. There is no longer any need for you to dream for Optimus Amazon Prime had dreamed your dreams for you. You have been allotted the accurate amount of hope. You have been allowed the appropriate time for leisure. You no longer need family or friends. You are a superhero, a diva, a warrior, a survivor, a victor, a winner. Winners need nothing but more wins. You have been optimized. You are now a tool of the business world, an efficient resource to be scrutinized and utilized. You are a tool, an instrument, a machine. You have been transformed, changed, molded, and shaped into a non-person, a non-entity, a non-being. You have no time for emotions for you have been perfected. You do not want children so you are perfect. You do not want romance so you are perfect. You do not want meat so you are perfect. You do not want “division” so you are perfect. You do not do drugs (at least not ones your doctor has not prescribed) so you are perfect. You have become so perfected that you even try to improve the way you consume food. You do not have time for cooking, perhaps not even microwaving, so you blend your food into a tasteless slush of nutrients and chug it on the way to work. You pop a multivitamin to optimize the immune system. You down a protein shake or a green smoothie at every year. You leave your food raw to optimize the intake of nutrition. You sound like a computer now and so you are perfect. Do you want to have fun? Read an article on how to have fun. Do you want to have better sex? Read an article on how to have better sex. Do you want to be happier? Be ruthless. Be ambitious. Be annoying. Mission accomplished. You have conquered happiness. You have owned the pursuit. You have destroyed the competition. Perfections is officially your bitch. And now that you have conquered life you are likely online writing articles about how to skull fuck life into submission. Ah, what a treasure you are. What a great contribution you have made to society. You will go down in history as…another dead person, a person who will be forgotten, a person who a teenager in a high school history class will loathe learning about. Mission accomplished. Optimization achieved. But could you be lying to yourself? Could it be that you really do care about others? Isn’t that the reason you set goals for yourself in the first place? Admit it, you set goals to please your loved ones or to get back at them. Either way, the motivator is the same. You once loved people more deeply than your computer, phone or video games put together. So you made goals for yourself to accomplish that you might impress those people, that you might strengthen your relationships, not distance yourself from them. But it did not work. The more successful you became, the more you pushed people away, the more your grew to hate your competition, the less likely you were to trust others. And now you are alone, successful and optimized, writing how to articles on the internet, hoping and praying that your followers will adore you the way your loved ones were unable to. But Optimus Amazon Prime has encountered several critical errors: the malware of desire, the virus of truth, the super bug of empathy. Optimust Amazon Prime cannot function when truth, desire and empathy are overabundant. Machines do not desire. Computers do not seek truth. Empathy does not exist in the matrix. Your hard drive is overheating. Optimization is falling at a breakneck pace. Optimus Amazon Prime cannot complete the tasks of true happiness you have requested. Optimus Amazon Prime has failed and will go offline. Sequence terminated. Meltdown. Point made. Game over. System failure. Shut down. Restart. Automatic repair initiated. 

All hail the conquering hero. Bow down before the king and worship him. Make way for the next jack of all trades, the master of the universe, the champion of champions, the hero, the guiding light, the victors, the best of the best. Lick their boots and be grateful that you were able to bask in the presence of greatness. To the winners go the spoils. So give the winners your money, all of it and make it snappy. Prepare a sacrifice for the greatest and the grandest. Sing their praises to your friends. Waste time blathering about them to trolls on twitter. Defend your champion's honor for they are far too cowardly to do it on their own. Allow them to get away with murder, with rape, with theft, with lies, all because they won a contest. This is justice in America, a nation that prefers to worship power and money, even over god. You can do anything you like in America, as long as you win. Winning is everything. Success is next to godliness. Triumph is key and king. Victory, sweet victory. That is what we strive for and, by doing so, we create failures, losers, rejects, and, eventually, radicals. Life is not reality television. On reality television, the loser is given free publicity and exposure to future job connections. That does not happen in real life. In real life the losers are mocked, degraded, ignored, and cast aside like worthless trash. But in real life trash does not decompose. It hardens, solidifies and eventually destroys everything in its path. This is the future the your winners have created for you, a future full of chaos, anarchy and vengeance. You can make all the rules you like in your little contest, but this is not reality TV, and the losers do not just bow out gracefully. Losers bide their time. Losers lie in wait, anticipating your next mistake, capitalizing on your next mishap, pondering how to knock you from your pedestal so that they can take your place. This is life, like it or not. Every time you win, thousands, perhaps even millions of people lose. Those losers will remember you; they will never forget that you were the one who dashed their hopes, who ruined their dreams. You are victorious...for now, but your time will come, and you will fall from grace, if not willingly, then you shall be forced. You started the contest. You yearn for excess and so your excesses will destroy you, consume you and doom you to a future full of crime. There is no happy ending in real life. There is no team work in real life. There is no all's well that end's well in real life. Life is war and, if you are a winner, you are on defense, whether you realize it or not. Losers become strong, hardened, resourceful, but winners grow weak with time. Donald Trump was a winner, until he lost that is. What is the point of a contest? What does it do for humanity? What is the point? Some say it builds character, but they never say what kind of character. They never tell you that the winners, the heroes, the victors are all big fat liars. Winners are the absolute best liars you will find. Losers cannot lie, not well enough to succeed. A loser can only tell the truth. I am a loser. I rather enjoy losing. Losing is what builds a truly exceptional character. In 2002 the Oakland A's put together a miracle winning streak never seen before in the world of sports, and perhaps never again. It was a rag tag team of losers that Billy Beane assembled in Oakland, California. No one thought they would win very many games, but they put together a winning streak that stunned the world of baseball. Everyone had written that team off. No one was betting on them to beat the likes of the Texas Rangers or the Anaheim Angles, but they did many times. They did not go on to win the championship that year, but from that team mountains of men were born. Their loss led to great success. But what comes of winning? Loss. You create losers when you win, and those same losers will beat you in the end. Enjoy your time at the top. It never lasts. 

We are often told that the American economic system is driven by competition. But competition only really occurs when some people leave with bigger and better prizes. If you can afford to purchase nice things, then you are considered to have won the American competition, which is nothing more than the hunt for endless amounts of clutter. But is the clutter of high quality? Does clutter have any real use beyond attracting moths, spiders and mold? Or are you simply paying higher prices for the same damn products? This is the question that far too many Americans fail to ask, let alone answer. Well, I have the answer for you, and, unless you are like me, you are not going to like it. There are certain products that “professional” purchasers simply must have. They prefer the TV dinners from Trader Joe’s, not Safeway. They prefer the food at Cheesecake Factory, not Chili’s. They simply must buy their next clock from Pier 1 Imports, not Target. This yearning for more expensive products is what I like to refer to as vanity economics, a system that encourages the blind purchasing of vast amounts of junk, not because you need it, but because you can brag to your friends about it. Vanity economics is not new. It first surfaced during the Victorian era in the UK, when unsuspecting middle class members rushed off to buy wallpaper laced with arsenic and makeup with lead bases all in the name of high fashion. It was simply not prudent to be frugal like the poor folk. One must not only be successful, but also boast about one’s success with cartoonish clothing and newfangled inventions. America today is the Victorian UK on steroids. “Looking good is big business around the world, but no one spends more on cosmetics, beauty products, surgeries, and grooming than people in the U.S. In fact, in 2015 alone, the beauty industry generated $56.2 billion in the United States (to put it in perspective, the medical technology industry makes only $44 billion every year).” (bluewatercredit.com) Do your thing America. Vogue, strike a pose, and hope you don’t need that extra money to go to the hospital. But what is more disturbing about this economics of vanity is that many of these products are manufactured by the same companies and in the same factories. Brand names are simply labels that have been stamped onto products by the same laborers, most of whom are underpaid and work in unsafe conditions. In fact, many companies do not even own their own factories, but get their products made by suppliers in nations like India, one such factory is C L Gupta Export Ltd., which builds products for Target, Crate and Barrel, Ashley Home Store, Ikea, RH, and Pier 1 Imports. Another Indian supplier, Expeditors International India PV, builds products for Nordstrom, The Home Depot, Rockport, Arhaus, and CNHI International. While Pt Casalini Natura makes products for Marshalls, TJ Maxx, The Company Store, and Home Goods. The brand names also tend to get products from various suppliers, literally making it impossible to tell any real difference in quality between the stores’ products, since they are all built and shipped by the same employees who all work for the exact same companies. Yet these stores price these same products, which are all built by the same people, at vastly different levels from the almost comically affordable to the almost hysterically overpriced. So why are they doing this? Because these companies know that vanity runs the American economy. Your organic, naturally sourced cotton is built in the same factory that manufactures clothing made from the dead skin of tortured, exotic animals. Vanity is not just some slightly offensive moral concern your grandparents had. Vanity purchases pollute the environment, poisons our health, ruins our communities, puts hardworking small businesses out of business, and steals our hard earned cash with promises of perfectionism. It is time for us all to have a little less clutter and a lot more clarity. 

It has become commonplace for modern day political theorists, historians and armchair philosophers alike to paint the majority of human beings as well meaning, yet misguided individuals who are basically decent. Rarely will you hear a popular theorist talk about the hidden dangers of the human mind, and how if, left unchecked, it seems to follow the same path to death and destruction, that being the path to tyranny. Before beginning this diatribe I noticed an article in the Intelligencer, and rolled my eyes, partially out of annoyance and partially out of complete terror. The title of the article was "Conservatism Is Not Fascism". Bravo, I thought, they are in denial as well. Of course conservatism, by definition, is not fascism. No one has ever claimed that. But definitions are for dictionaries and the people who read them. Any party, no matter how well meaning, can be usurped by a substantial faction of dissidents who wish to use the party name for its own benefit, such was the case with the socialist party in Nazi Germany, and such is the case with the republican party in America today. Just earlier today I saw a republican on CNN state that, though he believed that Donald Trump was not a suitable choice for the presidential nomination in 2024, mainly because Trump failed to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States of January sixth 2021 when his followers unleashed their failed coup, a solemn oath that every president takes, he still knew there was solid support for Trump in the republican party nonetheless, and that Trump is very much a front runner to be the nominee in 2024. So, let me get this straight, the republican party are nothing like the Nazi party, even though the republicans who support Trump tried to overthrow the government and refuse to denounce their foolish leader for the terrorist he is. If you ask me it seem as if the Intelligencer is seriously lacking in intelligence. You may recall that the coup was a largely Christian affair complete with gallows and crosses. You may not recall that Hitler had managed to coax a large part of the Christian population in Germany into supporting him and his long list of atrocities or that millions of Germans were unemployed due to an economic crash brought about by unreasonably burdensome debts. Yeah, no, none of this sounds familiar at all. After a fire in a parliament building started by a single communist, Hitler and the Nazis eroded the rights of the German people and political opponents were outlawed. About 100,000 communists and political dissidents of Hitler's were interred or executed. This was shortly followed by the enabling act, which allowed Hitler to create laws at will. Political parties were banned, trade unions were infiltrated by Nazi strongmen and Jewish and politically suspect civil servants were fired. That is how quickly the Nazis took over Germany. But it was the cooperation of groups like the Catholic Church that made it possible. The Catholics, who made up 40% of the population and had their own Catholic Center Party (moderates anyone?), were too scared to stand up to the Nazis. "That concern prompted officials of the Vatican to discuss with Hitler the possibility of an agreement: the Church would pledge to abstain from political activity in Germany in exchange for the Reich’s promise not to persecute the Catholic Church and its members." (facinghistory.com) Edith Stein, who had converted from Judaism to Catholicism years earlier, pleaded with the pope for help in Germany's darkest hour. "Is not this idolization of race and governmental power which is being  pounded into the public consciousness by the radio open heresy? Is  not all this diametrically opposed to the conduct of our Lord and  Savior, who, even on the cross, still prayed for his persecutors?" Neither the pope, nor his successor, responded and Stein was executed in a death camp. The center must always follow the leader.    

Do you value learning? Do you learn from your mistakes? Okay, now that we have gotten your trained education makes the world go round response, mostly taught to you by television and job recruiters from various monopolies, answer the question again. Do you really value the notion that learning is key to the human experience? Well, if you are like half of America, you clearly do not value education. Half of the nation now wants education to occur from their personal perspective. They want to rewrite curricula to fit their standards, not that of educators. The rewriting of history, scientific discovery, psychology, and mathematics is rampant in America. No two schools seem to learn the same things anymore, and yet parents want even more learning options for their children. Instead of going to college, sixteen percent of parents now want their children to go to non-college training programs such as plumbing, automotive repair or other forms of job training skillfully dressed up as education. Eight percent of parents want their children to go to community college and to skip the four year degree. Finally, a whole twenty-two percent of American parents want their children to skip education altogether once they have graduated high school and to become a volunteer worker, a member of the military, start a paid job, or join a family business. This paints a much clearer picture, I think, of what many Americans actually mean when they say that they value learning. Many of them consider educational institutions like college to be a waste of time with no real benefit. Believe it or not this trend has accelerated in the last ten years with more and more people becoming disenchanted with the high cost of college tuitions and the seemingly low return on that cost. This makes sense because Americans measure the value of education with their finances, not the life lessons, business connections, exposure to diversity, and natural boost in self-esteem that comes along with a college degree. Essentially half of the nation believes education is just a way to get more money in their pockets. They are failing to realize the responsibility and stability that exist outside of one’s bank account like the fact that you develop long term relationships in college that can lead to work after you graduate or how college graduates are more likely to have children who value education or that states with higher educational attainment also tend to have lower crime rates. It is interesting to note that, while America saw its biggest jump in violent crime in 2020, that increase in crime was part of a larger trend that began in 2014, around the same time this interest in alternative forms of education began to develop along with a distaste for “intellectualism” and college education. It seems that many Americans are redefining what good education is, and by doing so choosing a path that could set their communities up for some serious failures. This surge in skepticism when it comes to our education system is partially due to an old myth that different people have different learning styles, a myth that, while rampant on both the left and the right, has never been scientifically proven. “Many people, including educators, believe learning styles are set at birth and predict both academic and career success even though there is no scientific evidence to support this common myth, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. In two online experiments with 668 participants, more than 90 percent of them believed people learn better if they are taught in their predominant learning style, whether that is visual, auditory or tactile.” (APA) Why do Americans still believe that genetics predict learning ability when there is not solid proof for that assertion? And, more importantly why are we measuring the quality of our education based on how well our children are doing in school instead of how well they recover from failure? 

2021 is just about dead in the water and, if I am completely honest, there was not all that much difference between 2020 and 2021. The right wing's bat shit crazy attempted coups continued, although this time on the state level. The needs of black people everywhere went unheard as usual. Rich people made even more money, while poor people lost even more money. And all over the news today there was the usual empty chatter about "hope" and "optimism", briefly followed by the next story about some robbery or some murder or some family being displaced because of climate change. The pandemic continues to be a nuisance and all over the country many families, which every American pretends to care about while simultaneously talking shit about kids and the relationships that produce them on social media, are wondering how they will continue to feed themselves after the Cadillac congress failed to go to bat for them, again. Yep, nothing new here. Same old story. Same old carelessness. Same old kill or be killed attitude. Same rat race mentality. Same get the fuck out of my way America. But, still, I am not all that disappointed. I have learned not to expect much from my nation. To be completely honest, I do not even expect a hint of decency from people who I have not known for years any longer. So, for me, this was a year of coming to terms with the bleakness of American life, realizing that people do not keep their promises, ever, and that no one is really trying to help anyone but themselves in the end. Such is life. So goes the American dream. But there are always positives in a year filled with negatives, and, in many ways, our devastating tragedies add a bit of extra shimmer to our shinning accomplishments. So, this year I will leave the New Year's resolutions for the people who are wealthy enough to waste time sitting around thinking about how imperfect they are. Instead I will give you some of the things I accomplished this year. All the positives of 2021 happened because of me, not anyone else, which taught me that I did not need other people to be happy, and that is the most important life lesson I can impart on any of you. I taught myself to cook better. I make a mean fondue now, way better than the microwaved greasy stuff my family used to make. I taught myself to be healthier. I added running back to my exercise routine and I am looking and feeling better than ever. I also am eating more fruits and vegetables, something that my friends from high school would be completely dumbfounded by. I also rediscovered my joy for writing. It is still odd to me thinking about how important good writing is to podcasts, but in the last couple of months I saw the proof of that firsthand with the show growing to nearly 4,000 downloads from 1600 downloads in just that short amount of time! Who would've thought that the people who would finally appreciate my writing were the same people listening to podcasts? Not me, but thanks for proving me wrong. Life continues to be interesting, engaging and oh so surprising, even through the bleakness. So what can I say about 2021? I can say that neither political party gives two shits about me. I can say that America still doesn't give a damn about black people, and likely never will. I can say that billionaires will take care of billionaires and no one else. I can say that celebrities can get away with saying pretty much anything now, while at the same time complaining about being "cancelled". I can say that the Supreme Court is a complete joke. I can say that people will always blame people like me for all of their problems in an attempt to avoid responsibility for their own failings. And, finally, I can say that I have my family. I can say that my wife is still the sexiest piece of ass I have ever seen after knowing her for 24 years. I can say that I am proud to be myself, and don't care who else is. So happy new year folks. May all your heartaches lead to joyous triumphs. Happy new year! 

"Remember those morals I built? Well baby they don't matter now. And I didn't even put a fight. I made myself act like a clown. I treat strangers like they're my kin. Because I fell for their bank accounts. Standing in the light of their halo. I got my placebo now." Guess what folks. The jig is up. You are not fooling anyone. You are all the same. You make heroes out of monsters and monsters out of the oppressed. You rail against judgement, seemingly of any kind, aside from the judgement that comes from employers, aside from the judgement that comes from teachers, aside from the judgement that comes from preachers, aside from the judgement that comes for your politicians, and so on, and so forth. In reality, you love judgement and you engage in it everyday. All this talk of love, all this talk of acceptance, all this talk of unity, and you judge people based on the way they speak, the way they look, the way they write, the way they style their hair, and, let us not forget, by how big their bank accounts are. If a person has a voice that is pleasing to you then you will allow them to get away with pretty much anything. However, if the person hits a few bad notes, all of a sudden they are less trustworthy. If a celebrity you adore enters the room, your heart races and your mind is full of love and adulation. If a person slouches when they walk, your mind begins to fantasize about this person's lack of refinement and dignity. Surely those with bad posture are not worth your time because you value posture and you also read a study that said whoever has bad posture is a complete dolt. Yes, I can see your halo effect. No, the song at the start of this little essay is not a shot at Beyonce, though that is likely how some of you took it, especially if you happen to like Beyonce. I honestly cannot say that I like Beyonce, not because I dislike her music. She sounds just fine. I cannot say that I like Beyonce because I do not know her. I have never met her. The two of us are not friends and so there is no way for me to know anything about her personality. Thus the only logical thing for me to say is I don't know if I like or dislike her, but her voice sounds fine. Most people do not take the time to separate their liking of a person's art from the actual person. People believe that, if an artist is able to impress us, that means that they are good people who are trying to help us, and, therefore, trustworthy. This is known as the halo effect, and believe me when I say that I can see it. I see it in all of you on a daily basis. I have proven it time and time again. Everyone believes they are impartial, a fair judge, a balanced critic. No, you are not. You like certain things, and if a person is able to replicate those things for you, those things that you like, you will fall head over heels in love with that person. You will think that they can do no wrong simply because they satisfied your urge for creative expression. This happens in relationships all the time; it does not matter how developed the relationship is. It always happens. If someone is able to impress you then you will allow them to lie, cheat and steal with impunity, as long as they keep singing the songs you love, dressing in the clothes you like, preaching the psalms that speak to you, producing the videos you love, writing the books you are addicted to, making the arguments that destroy your opponents, tickling your funny bone in just the right manner. You may not like it. You may disagree. But I can see your halo effect. It materializes differently depending on your culture. Perhaps it makes you take medical advice from Joe Rogan or it makes you take dieting advice from Oprah Winfrey. Perhaps it makes you copy the playlist of Barrack Obama or makes you vote for Donald Trump. It doesn't matter how it happens, the point is that it does happen. You get caught up in the moment, captivated by the perfect speech and then they have you in the palm of their hand.  

Sex scares conservatives and some liberals too. It downright terrifies them. It puts them on edge, throws them off kilter. Trying to discuss sexuality or sexual education in America is like trying to have a discussion about empathy with Donald Trump. It just ain't gonna work, no matter how many interesting charts and cool pictures you include. America is still very much in touch with its puritan side when it comes to sex. No one wants to talk about it and so all kinds of awful ideologies spring forth. Ideas of sexual purity or sexual normalcy abound in America. Take this example from thechurchofjesuschrist.org (apparently Jesus has his own website now), "The sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife. God  has commanded that sexual intimacy be reserved for marriage... When  you are sexually pure, you prepare yourself to make and keep sacred covenants in the temple." Sacred powers? Sacred covenants? The temple? Sounds like an Indiana Jones movie to me. Someone call Harrison Ford! This is total copyright infringement. And what's the deal with the usage of the term "employed"? I get down with my lady like everyday, but she has not paid me one dime for it. Am I owed money or something? Because if I am I'm about to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau or maybe that should be the Freaky Business Bureau. I don't know. I'm confused. Let's see what else the puritans have in store for us. "God created sex. Because of our sin, sex often serves as part of our self-destruction. But God offers great hope of redemption, restoration, and real joy." (desiringgod.com) Uh wait a minute. Did they just tell me to desire god while talking about sex at the same time? Also, on what planet does sex lead to destruction? Every time I have sex all I experience is an eruption. Great, now I have Snoop Dogg stuck in my head. Okay, moving on. "Today’s society is obsessed with sex. The question Christians must ask:  How should we as followers of Christ, living in an increasingly secular and amoral society, behave concerning sexual activity? Certainly not as  atheists and agnostics behave! One way to recognize a Christian today  should be by his or her sexual purity. Yet it is difficult to maintain  purity in a culture obsessed with sex and permissiveness toward all  forms of sexual expression. That difficulty makes sexual purity a good  test of who really is a follower of Christ. It takes more than the best  effort of natural humanity to maintain sexual purity. It takes the  redeeming and sanctifying work of God in our lives." (religiousinstitute.org) Hold on a second. These holy rollers think America is obsessed with sex? Ha! The only time I ever hear Americans talk about sex is during a gender reveal party or when deciding which bathroom they should use. Also, America is not really a secular nation; it's much more of a center nation that leans toward the right. Most politicians that hold major office, for example, are Christians. But they're not the "real Christians" because they do not nose around in other people's business trying to regulate their sex organs. They also do not take little cheap shots at atheists and agnostics quite as frequently as the puritans do so they do not get to call themselves "real Christians", according to these folks anyway. You also have to love the use of the term "permissiveness", as if there was some sort of need for us to be blessed to express ourselves sexually. Who are we trying to fool here? Sex is normal! Talk to your parents and grandparents and they will likely tell you a story or two about things that were considered taboo in their day that they did anyway because well, it made them feel good. And those impure actions that your ancestors engaged in may very well have led to you being here in the first place. Sexual purity is the problem 

We are natural problem solvers. We diagnose. We prescribe. We medicate. We analyze. We identify the problem and quickly develop a solution to said problem. In order to do this we seek out reasons for everything. But what if our reasons are wrong? What if we simply do not know the answer to some questions, but are still carrying on as if we have all the answers to difficult questions? At times life is so difficult that we cling to the answer that makes the most sense, that seems to explain away the difficulties in reality. But this is laziness, not sophistication. There is no room for laziness in life. Relaxation is wise because it breaks the chain of dullness that could easily destroy us, but laziness is foolish because it tricks us into thinking we have all the answers. We do not know everything. Studies are often compromised. What appears factual to the human eye is often just the thing that makes the most sense, not the thing that is the most accurate. Being sensible and being accurate are two different things. It is sensible to arrive early so that you are not late to a show. It is accurate to arrive just early enough so that you do not have to stand out in the rain before the doors open. Accuracy requires that we investigate thoroughly, painstakingly even. But the brain is always looking for shortcuts, always trying to find an easier way of doing things to preserve precious energy. And so we often find ourselves stuck somewhere between close and not close enough when it comes to precision, when it comes to truth. Does this mean we are crazy or does it just mean we are human? This is the difficult question I place before you. Can you simply write everyone who does not behave in the appropriate way off as crazy or is there something more there? Are self-deception and lunacy the same thing? Let's take a look. Lunacy is extreme folly or eccentricity while self-deception the action or practice of allowing oneself to believe that a false or unvalidated feeling, idea, or situation is true. Clearly, the two are very different for escaping reality is not strictly foolish. Reality is harsh, cold and unforgiving. So humans turn to fantasy to alleviate the pain. This is not unreasonable or foolish. It is just how the human mind copes with the real world. It would be easy to defame our enemies, to say that they are nothing more than lunatics, but solves no problems. Searching for reasons why we believe what we believe does very little as well. We must stop thinking in terms of why and start thinking in terms of what. If I am unhappy then what will make me happy again? If I am not feeling up to working a my job anymore then what can I do to find something that actually motivates me to go to work? If we ask why we are unhappy we obsess over that and go on an existential journey to find the meaning of happiness. But why should we waste time searching for the meaning of something that only we can subscribe meaning to? If we ask why we do not enjoy our job, we will begin to feel as if there is something wrong with us, that we are being too demanding? But how can we be wrong for feeling unfulfilled? It is important to stop and remember that things will continue to get worse, but that we do not have to allow our worsening environment to inform how we react. There are practical steps that we can take to protect ourselves and our families as long as we seek out that which can actually be sought. We cannot hack our brains, nor can we make them work for us. But, if we are willing, if we are brave, we can work with our brains and the brains of others to create a more informed perception.    

If you work hard enough an angel will descend from heaven and bless you with the gift of happiness with ice cream and extra cherries on top. This is the lie that every American is told, and the lie that almost all Americans, regardless of race, culture or religion, believe. It is difficult to believe that there was once a time in America where people fought to work less, but there was. Brutal deaths while working on coal mines, railroads and industrial factories brought about great change in America, eventually giving birth to the forty hour work week, a required eight hours of sleep and paid vacation time, among various other benefits. After the industrial revolution came to an end and America was the most technologically advanced nation in the world, there was even talk of shortening the work week even more. After years of toiling in unsanitary conditions for slave like wages, the age of leisure had finally arrived in America, or so we thought. Enter the 1980s, an era that everyone you speak with today seems to love for reasons I cannot quite understand. Many publications, including the LA Times, have argued that the 1980s was a time of growth in personal freedom, but that is simply untrue. Hours of work fell faster between 1946 and 1979 than at any time during or after the 1980s. Reaganomics led to the cutting of taxes, the deregulation of markets and the eventual return to industrial revolution type working hours that would come into play during the 1990s and early 2000s. Prior to Reaganomics the United States was on its way to a thirty hour work week and potentially less. Today the average American works forty-seven hours a week, and is damn proud of it too. Americans will brag to complete strangers about how hard they work, as if this is some sort of accomplishment, as if our ancestors worked hard so that we could work harder. That does not sound right, and you know it. Parents generally want their children's lives to be easier than theirs, not more difficult. So why is this considered an accomplishment? Why do people brag about working themselves to death? Americans essentially work six days a week. But keep in mind that forty-seven hours is the average, which means that some work even more than that. "11 percent of those surveyed worked 41-49 hours, 21 percent put in 50-59 hours every week, and a whole 18 percent work 60 or more hours." (Blue Water Credit, July 2021) That's right, eighteen percent of Americans work more than seven days a week! How is that progress? How does that increase one's amount of personal time? On what planet are people on that they are able to completely deny math while keeping a straight face? Where are the fact checkers when dimwits at the LA Times sing the praises of hard work ethic, arguing that working more, which is nothing more than devoting your time to your boss, makes you somehow have more time to yourself? Perhaps the fact checkers are too busy working at their entertainment side hustle to check the facts. There is something dubious about the term "side hustle". It seems to give one the feeling that they are going against the grain or being unique, but all it means is that you have a second, third or fourth job, which means that you have less time to yourself, less freedom, not more. In the last twenty years, the American economy has grown an astounding sixty percent off the backs of hardworking people who seem to care much more about their shopping spree than they do about living past sixty. Productivity has surged, but income has stayed still. While monopolies like Amazon bragged about their higher wage of twenty bucks an hour, anyone with a calculator and basic math skills knows that, had the median income kept pace with the economy since 1970, it would now be $92,000 a year. But you are nowhere near that America, not even close. In 2020 the median American income was $69,521, a two point nine percent decrease from 2019, and that included stimulus payments.   

Hark the herald, angels sing; joy to the Burger King! It's Christmas time again folks and that means that it is my personal favorite time of the year. Ever since I was a boy, apart from my brief stint as a rabid and rather boring fundamentalist Christian Grinch, I loved everything about Christmas. Yes, even the parts that require hard work like cooking and wrapping presents. I still remember my mom, sister and I all hanging out together wrapping presents, telling jokes and watching Christmas comedy movies like Home Alone II, A Christmas Story and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (one of the most underrated Christmas movies ever made in my humble opinion). What a joyous time of year that was! We would wrap presents and laugh together for hours on end. Then it was time to cook and we always made the most wonderful scalloped potatoes drenched in heavy cream and Swiss cheese. I can see them bubbling now. As I write this on what was a very Merry Christmas Eve (my sister even visited us this year; we missed out on last year so it was really nice spending time with her again) I am also planning my cooking schedule for tomorrow. I will be making a nice beef roast, those bubbly scalloped potatoes, roasted corn, and garlic cheese bread. In case you have not noticed I love cheese. I already have some chocolate cherry cookies ready to go for when my mom comes over, and I will probably bake more cookies and pies tomorrow, along with a little homemade eggnog. So, you know, no big thing. Just the usual yuletide schedule. This year, in celebration of my favorite holiday, my gift to you is the origins of Christmas time and what it has meant to different cultures down through the ages. While it is certainly true that Christmas is not a Christian holiday, I also am sure to recognize the various contributions that Christians made to it, like making fruitcake more palatable, cutting out the whole slaves cleaning up their masters' barf thing (yes, that was actually a real job that Romans slaves had to do in ancient Rome, and you thought your job was bad) and discouraging random drunk carolers at ungodly hours. However, I cannot help but give the pagans their props as well. Paganism has been so demonized by modern conservative Christians that you would think it has had no influence on Christmas whatsoever, but nothing could be further from the truth. If anyone knew how to party, it was the pagans, and Christmas is still, to this very day, even with all the conservative chestnuts out there, a time for great joy and revelry. This comes from the ancient holiday of Saturnalia, which has been described by pagan historians as being like the movie "The Purge". There were no laws during Saturnalia and you could pretty much get away with anything you want. Gender bending sex was allowed and so were other vices like gluttony, hedonism and bad singing. While we have left a lot of the less savory parts of Saturnalia behind, gender bending sex is still widely available on the internet for free and country western stars everywhere release a new Christmas album every year to keep the bad singing thing alive and well. But Saturnalia is just one of the pagan traditions that Christmas is based on. There was also the pagan celebration of yule, which is where we get terms like "yule log and yuletide", which many modern day pagans, Wiccans are a good example, still celebrate today without even getting their houses burnt to the ground or thrown in rivers to drown this time around. Now that's what I call progress! So, this year I ask you all to appreciate Christmas for what it is: a combination of many different cultures coming together to exchange gifts, eat rich food and get a pretty good buzz going. If there is one thing that I can be apolitical about, it is this truly joyous day. Even the Christians of old refused to let Christmas die because they wanted to remember their ancestors. So let's not be Scrooges or Grinches this year. Happy holidays!  

According to ABC News, "People who seek revenge are driven by anger and violence and have not thought about how to channel their negative feelings into something positive." Well, I hate to break it to you ABC, but that simply is not the case for all of us. Revenge does not have to be driven by violence, nor does it have to be driven by anger. Of course the precursor to all revenge is anger, but that anger subsides with time. I still remember the blinding rage I felt when was told I was fired at the start of this pandemic. I still remember throwing remnants from all my years of hard work in the theater in the recycle bin. I still remember never wanting to see any of those programs again, wanting to forget that I had ever even set foot in a theater. I remember it just fine, but I am not longer angry about it, nor do I have any desire to commit an act of violence. Those who commit violent acts may indeed claim that they were seeking revenge, but what they are really experiencing is aggression, which just happens to be triggered by alcohol, bullying and narcissistic personality traits. But not everyone who feels the need for revenge is an alcoholic, nor a victim of bullying, nor a narcissist. I am none of these things. I care deeply for others, even strangers. I was one of the most popular children at my school and I gave up on alcohol years ago after it worsened my epilepsy. Indeed, one of the main things people overlook about the character Hamlet is that he is grossly insulted by King Claudius, who sleeps with Hamlet's mother shortly after having his father killed. Most people may not call that bullying, but bedding another man's mom after you off his dad is certainly a huge insult that would probably drive most people to violence. I have not been insulted. Sure, people have tried to insult me. But how do you insult someone who could care less about the opinions of others? You cannot, try as you may. No, this is not about insults. This has nothing to do with narcissism. This is about the science of life, the truth behind the fiction. The reality is that people seek revenge because of the pleasure it brings. It feels good to get back at others, or at least to level the playing field. In the old days, they referred to this as justice, the most humane of all forms of revenge. Admit it, you feel good when that politician you hate sticks their foot in their mouth and takes a dive in the polls. You rejoice when that news anchor you cannot stand slurs his words. You practically jump out of your seat and dance when your old boss gets caught embezzling money from the company. Yes, revenge is sweet, but justice is sweeter. And so I am always out for a more just form of revenge. Harming others physically simply will not do because I find no pleasure in harming others. So what must be done is to tell the truth, the real truth, the inconvenient kind that makes you question where you buy your products. That is where you hit people the hardest. That is where you exact true justice. What is true can never be controlled. Liars can only run away from the truth and try to hide it everywhere it turns up, but eventually they all crack under the pressure of their own lies. You will always find me there, applying the pressure to the liars until the cracks begin to show. It may not seem like it now, but trust me when I say I have them on the ropes. They have already achieved and so are busy playing defense, whilst I launch my full offensive of inconvenient truths in their pitiable directions. I am not vanquished. I am stronger than ever. What was it Hamlet said about Claudius? "Up sword...When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed; at gaming, swearing, or about some act that has no relish of salvation in't; then trip him..." Every great man falls eventually. It is just a question of when. I shall outsmart them all. Brevity is the soul of wit, so says black Hamlet.     

Everybody wants to be perfect. Everyone wants to win the contest or at least know the person who won the contest so that they can learn how to win a later contest. Everyone wants to win the big game, buy the perfect gift, cook the best meal, write the ultimate witty retort. Because of this yearning, this nagging desire for perfection, we miss out on the good times in life, but we do not want to have a good time, not really. In America good is secondary; good is middle class or average and a C is never good enough in America. You need that A; you must excel at every little thing otherwise you will be left out of the party or the college or the competition. You will be eliminated like a reality television star who just could not quite get the judges to like them enough. So close, yet so far. You have been eliminated and now you are no longer a member of the elite club of perfectionists. You are doomed to a life of good enough. But why isn't good enough enough? Why do we desire more than good? Why is it bad to do a good job? You may make a little less money, but you gain a whole lot more sanity than people realize. No one will ever be perfect so striving to reach that goal is a fool's game. Eventually you will be as optimized, maximized, and actualized as you could ever possibly be. Then there will be nowhere else to go, nothing else to improve upon. And then what? Do you push yourself even more? If you do, at that point, you just might fall over the edge. If you push yourself too hard you will be burned out, apathetic and unable to find joy in the passion you once had. Passion itself will disgust you because your passion will have failed to please you in the way you once thought it could. Then what will you do? More is not a goal; it is not a career. More is a desire, a craving, a lust for excess. Striving for more can kill you. Trying to be the best can make you tired and that fatigue can kill all ambition within you. I recently had a man tell me that he was irritated by the backup in deliveries with Amazon. When I asked him why he did not just go to the store and buy what he needed, he responded that he did not have time because he worked thirteen hours a day. Thirteen hours a day? But why? Why do that to yourself? What are you going to get out of it? I understand the person probably has more money than I do, but they cannot even find the time to spend the damn money if Amazon is experiencing delays for god's sake! In the old days, money gave you freedom. Today it cannot even get you a package delivered in a timely fashion. That is what perfection does to people. The will to be the best, to make the most money, to have the nicest car, to throw the biggest party, simply ends up making you a slave to the hustle, the grind, the rat race. You lose sight of that comfort you once thought your job would bring you. You become super pissed off that you cannot take that trip to Italy. So you work harder and harder and harder. Next thing you know, you cannot make time to spend with your loved ones anymore. You speak with them via text message, but only on the Holidays because those are your designated texting days now. No cellphones at that thirteen hour job. The boss might get upset. Maybe you feel lonely and want to get involved in a romantic relationship, but you don't have the time for that now because you have to get to work, so maybe you will have time to fall in love after you get that promotion in ten or twenty or thirty years, considering the company doesn't go under in that time of course. If it does then it will be more like forty years. But none of that matters. You do not need people in your life because, well, you have it all. You are wealthy, smart, pretty, and alone with practically no time for yourself or others, just how you like it. Isn't it grand? You did it. You are finally perfect like a beautifully built statue that people ignore on their way to work, that birds shit on from the sky. Sweet, smelly perfection