More Content Talk

Trust does not come easy. It takes years of hard work to build, even if it is just between two people. You can start out the best of friends, getting along with a certain person or group of people possibly better than anyone you have met before. Then you realize that trust is fragile; it can teeter on a bed of lies, like most other things, but only for so long. Trust, like anything, must be constantly proven again and again. And, like all hard work, the process of building and rebuilding trust becomes exhausting, especially during a time of great financial gain. Why does the accumulation of vast amounts of wealth in the hands of a few almost always end in devastation? Is money evil? No, money is just paper with dead men's faces and evil is a concept for those who remain afraid of the real world. But it remains a fact that financial gain often turns the heart to stone. People begin to fantasize about a world with fewer taxes without first establishing that the remaining taxes go to the people who need them the most. People begin to encourage those struggling in their communities to seek out the church instead of seeking out the financial advisor or the addiction therapist or the suicide hotline. Prayer is all that will do, mostly because of the erosion of trust between society and the government, society and the media, society and the education system, society and big business...Are you starting to see a pattern here? Organizations, whether they be privately or publicly owned, who continue to fight for themselves and no one else eventually become so useless to society that society divorces itself from these institutions altogether. Even now, as I type these very words, I am reminded of the absent-minded, empty, strictly business, pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality that I dealt with in the working world. The way in which a person's break or lunch is ignored, almost treated as secondary or the way we are expected to be on time all the time, even if we do not have cars, even if the transit system is shit. None of this is new to anyone. I often think the news only exist today to give rich people the false sense of actually caring about what is going wrong because nothing ever changes. No one ever actually makes the transit system more efficient. No one ever actually becomes more empathetic or lays off a bit with the constant expectation of perfection all while paying someone next to nothing for the work they do. I still remember being left out of all the raises, all the promotions. People would laugh at you almost when you applied for all the jobs they just used to give away to boomers like candy. Every single time you go into the damn interview, "not enough experience". How do you get the experience if no one is ever willing to give it to you? Oh, right, you're supposed to have rich parents who buy you rich people schooling. Eh, who needs it? Who needs any of it? Who needs to constantly be reminded of their failures? Who needs to watch some pompous ass brag about their umpteenth promotion? I have a secret to tell you. I do not want to go to your house an hang out. I do not want to see that new high rise you just bought. It is just going to sink or collapse anyway. There is really no point to any of this rat race crap because all the owners have already decided that success is only for people who support insurrections. We peaceful, law abiding citizens, however, are to suffer in poverty as the red party calls us communists. The irony is so strong that you almost forget it is even there; perhaps that is the endgame. And now, as we see the big power players once again flip-flopping on mask mandates, once again politicizing our health, it is important to remember who put in this position. That much of the disasters you are now seeing were predicted decades ago and could have prevented, had any of our institutions invested in us and not themselves. If you want a functioning society you must allow it to function. 

It seems like a lot of people need help these days, especially the people who are supposed to be in charge. They have not really gotten their jobs down quite yet. They often need some help, even more than our tax dollars can seem to provide. But, regardless of how much our corporate and governmental owners place responsibility for their shortcomings on the pandemic or increased unemployment relief, the fact remains that they very well could have prevented the huge decline in social order that we are currently witnessing. You have probably heard various young people of all races, religions and backgrounds talk about how they do not feel that their leaders give a damn about them. Hell, I feel this way and I am a thirty-five year old college graduate with a family to support. As I have mentioned in prior episodes, maybe even in all of them, when you alienate the people by refusing to provide them with a decent wage, the backlash is both swift and deadly. You are seeing various workers either quitting their jobs or resorting to violence and joining a life of crime, which is often more profitable than the straight and narrow path that I have chose. Criminals are seeing the largest increase in wages they have ever seen, but the average person has been mostly left behind by cheap city governments working in compliance with the federal government to make it nearly impossible to file for assistance programs. This has caused people living on minimum wage to suffer immensely while the wealth classes bitch and moan about their ability to attend concerts with masks so that they can "get back to normal". Well, it turns out that this is the new normal as states across the nation are finding that employees are no longer interested in working for mere pennies an hour. This comes as no surprise to me or to Forbes, who recently released a report stating that the cause of labor shortages was merely expedited by increased unemployment benefits and the pandemic. That is to say that the labor shortages were already going to happen anyway. Why? Because the mostly older people who were working in high salaried positions were going to retire in the next few years and there is simply no one to replace them. The birthrate has declined due to a rise in obesity and an overall unwillingness to deal with it for fear of offending people. Yes, the government in this nations has grown so spineless that it will not even support getting healthy food into the hands of those who cannot afford it. Apart from that, America's anti immigration rhetoric has grown so vitriolic that many immigrants are choosing to stay put or to seek out other nations. Finally, the working age population is severely limited because many women are choosing to stay out of the work force, the most since the 1970s. This is occurring because women can no longer afford adequate child care and one simply cannot work if they do not have childcare. The fact is that this problem was predicted decades ago and instead of dealing with it, many states opted to ignore it entirely. In order to regain social order and address the working shortage we must demonstrate to people that there is real hope to have a career in America without starving to death. I know it seems like only an idiot would not understand such a thing, but, as I have said many times in the past, money has a funny way of making people behave in an idiotic manner, like not paying employees a fair wage. Well, here's the complete idiot's guide to social order. Be sure to give it to your boss the next time you see them.  

We are prone to forgetting that we are nothing more than skin and bones; every single last one of us is made from the same stuff, cut from the same cloth. But there are some who rail against this simple truth, hoping to drive humanity to a final show down, a war between the supposed races and sexes. But whether or not this war happens is largely up to us for nothing is ever written in stone. In today's political climate, it is all too easy to be sucked into political movements that may or may not end up being of service of you personally. If people are suckered into enough scams over time, they will feel a need to abandon groups entirely, especially political groups. But your political identity will mostly stay the same throughout your life, no matter what you call yourself, so it is important to remember who you are as an individual. In order to maintain control whilst charging down this treacherous path, it would do us a great amount of good to remember what makes us passionate about the things we strive for, the ways in which we try to leave our respective marks on the world. I have said before that it is so important to recognize what we have to offer the world individually, as well as a country. We must not become a political collective, but a political body with various different parts. There is no need for us to monopolize uniqueness, to turn it into some other useless commodity. We love to know that we are safe, and being a member of a group makes us feel safe, but it remains imminent that we recall how very unsafe this world is, that it is constantly moving, changing and evolving. We must safeguard our identities, the baseline in our unique melodies. Becoming sucked into partisan drama is not the answer. However, the fight we face is real and the enemy is well armed. But there is a happy medium, a place where violence can be trounced by intellectual prowess, the one thing this enemy lacks, and therefore fears. I have not given up this fight at all. I embrace it everyday. Some people deny that there is a struggle going on here; they tell themselves comforting stories of a world where ideological divides do not exist. Such fantasy should be reserved for children. You must persist in your effort to be heard by the government, not in an attempt to weaken it, but in an attempt to save it from itself. The people are the protectors of democracy. We do so in many ways, with intellect, with wit, with charisma, with art, and so on. We have many weapons in our arsenal as well, so do not be intimidated. 

CPAC recently happened. It does not really matter if you did not know about it, but CPAC is essentially a huge conference for conservatives where they decide policy, if you can call it that, and leadership choices. I suppose at one point CPAC had a purpose other than being the largest gathering of balding and obese Americans since "The Biggest Loser" series. There were a lot of losers at CPAC this year and, like losers, they were all plunged deep into a state of delusion. Often times when proud people lose they are not really ever able to get over the loss. It sticks with them throughout their lives and causes them to make their ill informed choices a kind of medal of honor. A cult mentality is created where wrong is right and right is wrong. This kind of unbridled group think is exactly the kind of mentality that led to the January sixth attack on the Capitol. But there was no threat of violence at this conference; there were just a bunch of whiny babies with nothing better to do than scream at feminists or prevent black people from voting. One of the "highlights" of the night (I use quotes here because I do not want to insult highlighters) was a stupid, almost unintelligible speech, by Donald Trump Jr., who I affectionately refer to as Don Don; okay, there is no affection there, but it sounds a lot better than saying "vehemently" so let's go with that anyway. Don Don could not speak well if his life depended on it. His speeches are just as disconnected and incoherent as his daddy's and he does not even have that snide, strongman appeal that his father has. He even insulted Texas during his speech; for those who do not know, Texas is basically a huge thunder dome like mass of land in America that enjoys all things republican (so, you know, that means guns and religion and pretty much nothing else). Texas definitely sucks some serious ass, which is why the democrats in Texas got the hell out of there the first opportunity they got. And who could blame them? Only a complete moron would even visit the American south. What are you going there for exactly? The sweltering heat? The unabashed racism? The presentation of creationism as legitimate science? The melting power grid? I cannot think of one thing that I would ever go to that state for. But, if I was in Don Don's shoes, standing in front of a bunch of want to be cowboys at CPAC, I would think twice before clowning Texans. But, as we all know, the Trumps do not know how to think. They have no tact and they lack adequate strategies that are needed for long term political success in America. Many people are starting to realize this as more and more independents start to view the republican party as the party of Trump ass kissers. It is vital to remember that Biden's election was a repudiation on Trump specifically, causing five percent of Republicans to vote for Biden, while only three percent of democrats voted for Trump. It is also important to note that Joe Biden is far more popular than Hilary Clinton, polling at 96% approval amongst democrats, while Clinton only polled at 90%. Biden also was able to flip 3% of independents at he state level and tied Trump at the national level amongst independents. This means that, instead of hearing voters distaste of Trump's emotional, conspiratorial and brute politics, republicans are instead further alienating the republicans and independents who opted for Biden in 2020 by choosing to be the party of Trump instead of the party of reason and frugality, which were a huge key to them winning in all races prior to Trump's election. What you are witnessing is basically the republican party handing the democrats the white house in 2024. They are running the same candidates while at the same time promoting a host of idiotic political pundits (Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, Ben Carson, Alex Jones, Steven Crowder, Mark Levin, etc.) who are now seen as Trump's surrogates. I don't know. Maybe conservatives want to lose. 

Hey everyone, it is time for the Olympics and you know what that means. Tons of seemingly meaningless actions are demonized for seemingly no reason...because that is just the drama that comes along with athletics in this nation. Why sports ever became political is a question you should ask the Ancient Romans, who believed that sporting events were a great way to distract the populous from public affairs, like the fact that the Roman Empire was, you know, falling apart. The Romans postulated that, if there were plenty of sports and food (bread and circuses), the people would forget the poor conditions under which they were living. Though it worked for a time, we all know that Rome ended up collapsing under the power of itself, but that is another story. Now America and nations around the world are employing the same tactic to distract from the fact that their empires are falling apart. I suppose they are trying to do what the Romans could not. The Olympics are nothing more than a worldwide political propaganda machine. The banning of black athletes is not longer possible so they find ways around it by enforcing dumb ass rules about weed. That helps to keep the black athlete population low. They also banned all forms of protest in a year that was all about black lives. None of that pro black shit in the white Olympics I suppose. Anyway, I rarely watch the Olympics or sports in general. There generally are not enough interesting stories for me to cover because most sports are just a bunch of angry, sweaty men trying to please their daddies. I could not wait to quit playing basketball and baseball. Eyeing sweaty men in tight pants and showering with them in the locker room is not my cup of tea. Plus I do not need some failed athlete yelling at me to give it a hundred and ten percent while he smokes a cigarette and consumes yet another Carl's Jr. super deluxe burger. I left that life and never looked back. But sports have only grown in popularity over the years and they are not going anywhere so from time to time I bring the sports balls report, where various balls are thrown around and people have to catch them or get hit in the face with the balls, the huge smooth, fury balls. America spends so much money getting training their children to handle balls by throwing them into sports that they do not want to play that one would think America would be the king of touching balls by now. But, alas, all that ball groping does not seem to be improving the athletic ability of the nation. Obviously there is the obesity epidemic and the various acceptance movements that have seemingly made Americans give up on weight loss entirely; you cannot really be the best at something that requires running when you are the most overweight nation in the world. That just ain't going to happen so get it out of your head right now. The dominance of America when it comes to athletics is coming to a close so enjoy it while you can. American basketball players have now lost two exhibition games to two nations that have been pretty obscure in the sport, Australia and Nigeria. You read that right, Australia and Nigeria. Just to put the significance of those losses in perspective, Nigeria is one of the poorest nations in the world today with a staggering 90 million people living in extreme poverty. Australia is also a very poor nation, with the 16th highest poverty rate in the western world. How did two poor nations make the NBA look like a bunch of damn clowns? It has a lot to do with America's arrogance, its assumption that they will always persevere no matter what. Years and years of watching movies like "Angels in the Outfield" and "The Mighty Ducks" have Americans thinking that all you have to do is pray and some spirit will show up and do the work for you. Well, it ain't true folks. You have to work to win, something that more and more Americans are realizing takes more than bragging on social media about how many trick shots you made.  

Color, the main thing that, as biology tells us, the human eye is programmed to distinguish with great scrutiny. Most people naturally see at least a majority of hues and tones of colors, while some of us see it even better than others. This is largely due to evolution. As children, it helps us identify the people who look like us, particularly helping in the early stages of life when we are still young children trying to identify our parents in a crowded lot or at an amusement park. There is nothing wrong with recognizing that a person has a different skin color...until you insert whatever political agenda you are attempting to push in it, using an identifier as a political battering ram. Many reject race as an identifier all together and that is quite wise, considering that the concept of race was developed by the same people who thought you could "breed out undesirable traits" of particular races, namely blacks, Asians, Hispanics, indigenous tribes, and even some Europeans, especially alcoholics, disabled people and those branded "undesirable", which, for many, simply meant unmarried and sexually active or someone who had committed a crime. Obviously I am not arguing to go back to the days of social Darwinism. However, I also do not want us to start pretending as if different skin colors just do not exist entirely. We would simply be deceiving ourselves if we did that and self-deception can have devastating outcomes. Do you really want to be completely separated from your ancestry and simply identify as "American"? Does that really encompass the entirety of you as a person? I love being an American, but I will always be a black American. I am perfectly fine identifying in that way because, as I have said in prior episodes, to me being black is a part of my identity. It is a way of life, a way of being. I enjoy being black, regardless of how difficult it has proven to be. Knowing that I have this special label, this blackness, I am always able to find solace in the fact that others like me have indeed persevered. It helps me keep going, this self-identification that white people have now deemed unsavory, but for seemingly different reasons than their racist ancestors, at least that is what they say; they are the ones that apparently do not have functioning eyes because they do not see color. That is what they say. But they are not color blind at all. So why say such a silly thing when you obviously can see color? It has to do with this wish I often see, mostly in moderate circles, but somewhat on the left as well, to squash all differences so that the big, mean, bad words are not used any longer. The neoliberals and old school conservatives want us all to stop fighting and to play nice now so we cannot "see color" anymore. That is really what it comes down to. Sure, there are people who choose not talk about the color of a person's skin, at least before they start talking about how wonderful they are for doing so (a painful lecture that will waste a good twenty minutes of your time every time). Of course all of these people can see every color under the rainbow, but they want us all to be at peace, no matter what the cost. Just be prepared for the boredom and the bullies that will surely come along with this newfound interest in herd mentality. When culture identifiers are maligned or treated as completely irrelevant, the world becomes a little more boring, a little less creative. We all need our own identities, and, though they certainly do not have to be based on skin color, I would hate to see a world where the various cultural contributions of my ancestral lineage went unrecognized. I would not be who I am today were it not for them. Sure, you can always make yourself a better person, but that does not mean that you must redefine your entire history because a few Americans cannot deal with having difficult discussions. How about we all just grow up and appreciate this very colorful world for its true beauty. 

What does the accumulation of supposedly righteous actions get you if it becomes your only pursuit in life? Filthy rags. That is what the bible says anyway, but it also seems to be a through point in humanity. Why do people needlessly acquire? Sometimes it is mental illness. But then there those that spend for the sake of "living", so that they do not miss out on the next big consumer orgasm. "Oh yeah, just look at the size of that deal", screams uncle Jim Bob the third, "It just don't get no bigger than that!" The hunt for junk has an almost sexual appeal. You can stuff your house with the biggest items you can have, in any and every compartment you desire. Hell, they will even sell you the compartments to put the deals in. Talk about a consumer orgy on an almost Caligula like scale. Why do people buy these things? What is the point? We have all heard of people talk about the accumulation of needless items being a problem. People chant that like they chant that they want the world to be a better place. It blends in to conversations about the weather or grocery shopping, no one is really listening, but everyone is talking as loud as they can to make some silly point. These massive acquisitions will ultimately serve little to no purpose. I recently watch an avid collector who had fallen into massive debt on a documentary about hoarding. He kept his items immaculate and tried to sell some of his priceless possessions at auction so he could pay off his $750,000 dollar debt, which he had accumulated because of his non stop shopping sprees. At the end of the day, after selling his "authentic" model space ship and "one of a kind" boots worn by Elvis, among countless other collectibles (he had rooms filled with this stuff), he came away with a grand total of $30,000. But, hey, at least he lived life to the fullest, right? I mean, he chose his own path and that is what really matters in the end. You know what I mean? Hopefully, you do not know what I mean. Hopefully, you are saying, "holy shit, that dude blew of his money on junk and didn't even get paid for it?" Because that is what your reaction should be, not some lovey dovey haiku about living life to the fullest. That is for teenagers, who, ironically enough, have parents to support them through their various foolish escapades. We are adults; we must behave in a manner that is advantageous to whatever situation we find ourselves in, and blowing all your hard earned cash junk that will just clutter the house is, well, stupid. Please do not be stupid. Please think before you buy things. I am not saying to only buy things that you need, that is up to you. But do not acquire junk only to throw it out later. But there is more to this episode than a rebuke on meaningless possessions. I also delve into the mindset of people who treat others as if they are less than them. People who see themselves as important to various movements often lash out at those they see as a threat to that movement. This is really what Jesus meant when he used the term filthy rags. He was referring to self righteousness, the tendency that humans have to rant about how wonderful and righteous they are. In the bible story, people brag about their good deeds, but fail to give reverence to god's chosen, the poor. Let us remember that Christianity is supposed to revere the poor. Many modern Christians have forgotten that. Jesus respected the poor. He cleaned them and tried his best to heal them. He fed them as well and also lived amongst them. This is almost unheard of in many of the modern social movements. Instead there is a reverence for the rich, the successful, the philanthropic, the well dressed, the show stoppers, the best of the best, the cream of the crop, the nicest, the sweetest, the kindest, the most loving filthy rags. All group banter is to me is filthy rags. It is the individual I care about. A person with a free mind does not desire approval from such groups. They simply observe and react.

Sometimes in life, you just have to listen to yourself. You cannot be distracted by the constant negativity of self-proclaimed "positive" or "motivated" or "enlightened" people. These people are always down on everything that does not promote their message; anything outside of their comfort zone needs to edited or adulterated to be more appealing to others. But what do the "positive" minded know about appeal? Don't they just say "to hell with what everyone else thinks" and end up doing whatever they please. Don't they brag about breaking rules and taking chances, only to instruct you to follow their rules at a later date? It seems a bit suspicious, perhaps even a little corrupt. It is as if no one really wants you to go anywhere in life, but that they still need to feel as if they tried to fix you; this calms their nerves and exonerates them from any possible wrongdoing. At least it is not their fault you did not succeed; you will not be able to blame them. You hear people say things like that and you add it to a long list polite threats society makes to "motivate" people. We have a lot of old time sayings written on the signs of our communities like, "a place you can feel at home" or "a city that moves with you". We should try something more realistic on our community sign; it should read, "Hi, welcome to hell, if you don't earn a million dollars your first year out of college, you will end up on the street with no friends and everyone will hate you for it and laugh as you die a slow and miserable death". That sounds much more like the real world to me: succeed or die. Yet success is always promoted in this happy light, as if you do not have to kiss ass in a very demeaning way to get there, as if you do not have to change yourself to "fit in" with the proper folk, as if such behavior is normal, as if that is not just like America has always been. And yet this is promoted as innovative, cutting edge even, this need to conform, this need to worship people simple because they hold status positions, this foolish order of meritocracy where only people who can afford mansions are taken seriously. This way of being, this need to please every little person and satiate every person's needs, is all but dead to me. I have already gotten rid of that way of thinking and living. There is no going back to i either; once you leave, you can never take seeing with a blindfold to be sight again. It is enough to be in social movements for awhile, to make new friends and enemies as people always do. However, as the friends fall away and the enemies age, the movement is no longer enough. You start to look around and you notice that the faces of your friends and enemies are all multi-colored, a kind of color wheel that blurs over. The people who hate you start to look just like the people who love you. It becomes difficult to tell when you are being complemented or criticized. Perhaps there is no difference and perhaps, even if there is, it does not really matter. It must not matter because here I am, doing yet another episode of More Content Talk, even though the numbers are dwindling again and the people come and go as they choose. Yep, I am writing up another episode description, hoping to find some word or phrase that draws you in to listen to something that you may like or hate, if there is a difference. It is hard to tell the difference between love and hate. They share the same qualities: passion, yearning, confusion, excitability, and so on. So, you see, whether you love me or hate me, it does not really matter. Perhaps you listen to me after a long day of saying to others you cannot stand me, too embarrassed to admit that I had some points you do not agree with. If that is the case, try not to be embarrassed; I only hope to inform you, to provide with a different outlook on life. That is the goal. That is why I am here. This is More Content Talk, news that will always be as honest with you as possible. 

In the constant hunt for equality we often tend to forget the power of celebrity and how it may be used for the power of good, but also for the power of self. We must decide what we are to do with a world that bases all of its judgements on popularity. There is a level of this contest like behavior in every democracy that I have studied. Of course every government presents itself as a rational bastion of truth, but there is no hard evidence that simply living in a democracy leads to a love of truth, and without truth, we can never have civility. And so it becomes vastly important to demand a kind of civil excellence from all figures who claim themselves to be authorities or leaders. This demand serves many purposes, but it also acts as a check on particular celebrity movements. Let us not forget that our heroes are not always accurate. Many popular stars have made all kinds of false claims, simply because they are trying to sell this or that product. Can we really trust these same people to encourage our political views? Some have clearly demonstrated that this is what they prefer, but they have not demonstrated that positive reactions to negative social behavior in any way leads to sustained improvement of said behavior; indeed, cooing over a stone cold criminal only demonstrates to the society that criminality is acceptable. It becomes much more difficult to be taken seriously when one is willing to excuse offenses simply because you watched someone on the television or because, as I so often hear, "that's just the way things were". What a blatantly dismissive thing to say about another person's pain. What an obviously cold response to another human being. It is no wonder societal ties are breaking left and right. No one seems to have respect for their fellow citizen's right to express themselves any longer. I suppose they never really did, but at least they were better at pretending before...or maybe it is the need for pretense that has eroded. Who knows? But something is different. More and more people are promoting themselves to get ahead. A self promo video often includes really obvious answers to softball questions that are designed to get a kind of teary eyed response from the viewer. It is an appeal to emotion with no real point other than to make someone admire you. I see this all the time on social media. Some well articulated speech from a well dressed person, violins play in the background while he or she or they dream of a better day. Then someone breaks into song for no reason, perhaps there is a little dance to and then, the next thing you know it, you finally made it to the big time. Black people beat racism...finally. How? By sending their kids off to college or by signing a record deal or by becoming a new tech wiz, you know, something inspirational...just insert whatever black triumph you want and pray... You will get it eventually; yes, I know, eventually. Now there is a word everyone in America knows, along with all of its lackluster synonyms. Yep, that raise will come eventually. That money from black celebrities will trickle down and rejuvenate the economy soon. That scholarship money you were promised is on its way; hell, it is in the mail as we speak! Do not worry about money. That is not what you should be worried about at all. Just keep trying. Buck up. You will get there if you keep your eyes on the prize. It is coming this time. I can feel it; I can see it in my mind. You just cheer up kid. You will be alright. Some day when we get older Santa Claus will show up, a big jolly black Santa Claus in Egyptian garb with a Cadillac sled. Black Santa is rolling up outside and he is going to finally take us all to back to Africa. And he is going to give us all kinds of money and love and peace and all that good stuff that white people talk about in their movies and in their books and in their homes. You see, nothing is really all that different here. People still want possessions over others.

Whether you have been assaulted or have been the victim of abuse or have just been beaten half to death by a crooked cop or are just calling out someone for lying, you have probably been labeled a public shaming, virtue signaling, unpatriotic, woke, socialist traitor by the internet or even by close friends and relatives. This acidic reaction to people calling out injustice is a sign of a people that have grown to loathe anything different, anything unusual, anything that does not make perfect sense at all times. For humans, there must always be an easy solution to every problem. This like systemic racism or patriarchy cannot exist because they are icky words that sound difficult to understand. There must be simpler, kinder, easier catch phrases for people to chant in order for the boring to go on living in a comfortable state of ignorance. Nothing can be anyone's fault and everyone has to play nice. An easy way to make people play nice is to change the dialogue that people use. Up until this year, I had never even heard people using idiotic terms like "public shaming" or "virtue signaling" before. Why? Because normal people do not boil complex issues down to simple phrases, only politicians do that. But people are becoming more political, and that has its downsides as well as its upsides. In this episode I will focus on the downside of this great political awakening, and that is that as people become more like politicians, they start to lose their concept of human decency. Everything becomes a deal waiting to be achieved, a bargain on the cusp to being reached. Utopia is only a contract away; now sign on the dotted line before you are left out...or else. You cannot talk to politicians normally. You cannot just sit down an have a discussion with a politician because they are always thinking of how they can use you next. You are much more talking to a computer program when you speak to a politician. They have approved things that they can say and if you go outside that paradigm, the system will malfunction and crash. Computer programs have no sense of right and wrong, but they do have a concept of well or unwell. Americans today are like the plumber you just called to fix your sink. They have just the tool for that problem, but you will have to pay extra. But societal issues are not as simple as grabbing a wrench from your dirty pick up truck. Old political wounds need a doctor, not a plumber, before they will ever be addressed. But the arrogant hoards of people disagree. They know how to fix you. They have the answer. All they have do is insult a few more people, disgrace a few more movements, point a few more fingers and, presto, America is healed. This desire to shut everyone up, to tame the world and make it stop being so naughty, comes from a place of deep fear. It takes a hero to save someone; it takes a coward to shut some one up. Cowards are plentiful in America. They go on popular media and yell at people for not liking this or that solution. The whole idea of "public shaming" and "virtue signaling" are just another way of expressing how very scared America is of change. America is a state that is now living in a kind of arrested development, denying that things like social movements and political change are natural parts of a state's progression and instead blaming it on communism or socialism or social media or counter culture or whatever other thing does not jive with mediocrity. If it is not mediocre and boring, it is not desirable in America. And so the various shaming narratives were invented to stop people from calling out the bullshit artists in society. How can you call someone out for abuse if you have twenty thousand morons on youtube responding to you and calling you names? Most people would never do such thing so thank goodness for people like me who see through this idiocy or else we would already be living in a monarchy. Kings and Queens and dictators would love today's internet wiz kids.