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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.