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I am not fan of Donald Trump, but then again, I am not really a fan of most politicians; but far too few people realize that you do not have to be a fan of someone to recognize their humanity, to remember that they are a human being. A simple recognition of someone's humanity allows us to strengthen our critique of said person because then we are able to divorce ourselves from at least the majority of our various biases. So I was absolutely fascinated to learn that Donald Trump's exposure to Covid-19 was a lot more serious than he made it sound. Sure, I had an inkling that Trump was not faring well, but there was no way to know of the severity of his illness at the time. "When Trump was admitted to Walter Reed Hospital with Covid symptoms last  fall, Mark Meadows, his then chief of staff, feared the president might  die, according to an article in the Washington Post adapted from Nightmare Scenario, a book about Trump’s response to the pandemic." (Forbes) Trump was actually told by medical professionals at the time, along with some members of his own administration, to stay in the hospital, but he refused. Although this may just seem like another stupid decision of Trump's, this is a common occurrence in America. Many people go against their doctor's orders, citing concerns about "Big Pharma" or preferring to use "natural therapies", which are often even more lethal than side effects of FDA approved treatments. Trump was so desperate to appear as if he was super human that members of his administration requested that therapies, which at the time were simply experimental, be used on the president of the wealthiest nation in the world. Now that is desperation folks. You may not be able to fully appreciate that, but I sure can. Experimental therapies are never used on a sitting president. Though the therapy was approved for use before it was given to Trump, this only occurred because it was requested by Trump's administration. Hat it not been requested, it most likely would not have been approved at the time. "As Trump lay ill, then Food and Drug Administration commissioner Stephen  Hahn received an urgent request from a top White House official about  fast-tracking authorization for a monoclonal antibody treatment not yet  approved by the agency." (Forbes) Why is a president of the most powerful nation to ever exist so afraid of being perceived by his followers as unwell? Well, some of it is pride, but pride does not just pop up out of nowhere; it is a byproduct of American nationalism. Consider the what Donald Trump tweeted to his followers the same month he would later be hospitalized with Covid-19: a meme with a picture of Joe Biden superimposed over an elderly person sitting in a wheelchair, who also appears to be in a retirement home; the tweet reads "Biden for President" with the p crossed out, causing it to read "Biden for Resident". The tweet received 422 likes. But it also played a huge part in driving away a lot of elderly people from voting for Trump in 2020. This, along with Trumpers recently booing Bill O'Rieley and Donald Trump for getting their booster shots, demonstrates that the Trump base is nowhere near as respectful of their elders as they like to pretend. The harsh truth about America is that it often uses this very ableist and ageist narrative, making cartoons out of disabled people as well as elderly people in order to gain likes and follows from those who lack empathy. Making a mockery of the sick and the aged became extremely popular during the eugenics movement in this country. Those who needed care or who were ill, a large number of whom were elderly, were seen as blemishes and burdens on society. 

You will always be alone, even if there are others around you, because you are the only person inside of your head, the only person who truly know or understands you is you. That is just a fact. You have to pretend for others; you cannot be your true self so you are all you have. There is nothing wrong with that. Democracy is based on individualism, not community. Sure, the community is there and it serves a purpose, but its purpose is not to infringe upon the rights of individuals, but to enhance those rights. We celebrate our uniqueness in America. We love how different we are, and yet we hate to be alone with ourselves. That is rather contrary if you think about it. If we love our individuality, our uniqueness, so damn much, well then we should be happy when we are long. We should not mope at the fact that we have alone time on the holidays or birthdays or any days really. What a gift it is not to have to impress anyone, not to have to be ridiculed, not to have to impress anyone any longer, not to have to expect anything from anyone anymore only to be disappointed later. You cannot get discouraged so easily because, once you are discouraged, you will become melancholy and then the light in your life has gone. You should never allow these tumultuous times to get the best of you. You should refrain from lashing out at others as much as possible, and the best way to do that is to be by yourself. It is fine to dream, but dreams only ever become reality on reality television. Rich people dream and then put videos about their dream on youtube. They then use the funds from their youtube channels to build their dreams. That is a sweet gig if you can pull it off, but it is damn hard to do when you are competing with celebrities who were already famous before youtube was even a thing. The odds are stacked against you and you have few resources at your disposal. You should not expect so much of yourself. You should love yourself as you are. We all know now that no one is coming to save us, that there is no great liberal hero on the horizon to combat the mean conservatives. You got what you voted for: centrism, dull, bland, boring, painful, center of the road politics. You could have had more; you could have had much more, but, for whatever reason, you picked someone who you saw as “safe”. We all know what happens to people who play it safe; they end up playing the fool. And so Joe Manchin has ruined any hope you had of passing the Build Back Better plan. I told you that would happen, but there was really no point in me telling you any of that because America is a predictable nation, it always chooses the most boring option, regardless of the circumstances. So, more and more, I am alone these days because I am not a boring person. I do not read romance novels about unity because I know how foolish a concept unity is. We’re not coming together; we’re not making the world a better place. We are farther apart than we have ever been. So the only advice I can give to you now is to learn to love your solitude for your politicians, your journalists, your entertainers, your activists, your gurus, your preachers have all abandoned you. They are all off partying with Joe Manchin, Dave Chappelle and Kayne West. They all love themselves very much. So, why shouldn’t you? Do not be lonely. Do not be sad. Create your own build back better plan. Get creative. Loss hurts, but you are much more than what you have lost. Exercise your right to be an individual. Make yourself the key focus, not arrogant politicians and foolhardy entertainers. Speak your mind, no matter what anyone says. It is freeing and it is free. Learn to be who you are, not what the wealthy want you to be, and, I promise, the pain will subside and you will flourish in ways that no congressional bill could ever fund.

What happens to a dream unheard? Does it calm down, like a child on the run? Or temper like a bore, and then shun? Is it silent like those who are weak? Or slick and darken over like an oily beach? Maybe it's just gagged and overthrown. Or does it get bold? Langston Hughes, who I actually had the opportunity of playing in a show once, wrote the landmark poem "A Dream Deferred" in 1951. Just twelve years later a man by the name of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., likely inspired by Hughes' wonderful poem, gave the landmark "I Have A Dream Speech" in 1963, which a great many people quote, but very few understand. Four years later in 1967, Langston Hughes died. A year later, in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered by a crazed gunman. After he was killed, riots broke out in the streets and Langston Hughes' poem proved to be more prophetic than he had ever imagined. That dream surely did explode, and it has continued to explode, and, I can promise you, that there will be many more explosions to follow. Dr. King's death was tragic and that tragedy remains very poignant for many of us to this very day. However, King at least had his time at the pedestal. He was able to be heard by millions of people, and I am glad for that because such a mountain of a man deserves to be heard. But in the black community there are many men like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: men with purpose, men with pride, men with strength, men with intellect, men with undying talent; but none of these men have been heard. Instead these black men are told to wait their turn while democratic establishment panders to conservative and moderate white folks, the same conservative and moderate white folks who sabotaged the Build Back Better bill. You saw what happened when the dream was at least heard. You saw what happened when you killed a King. Now the people of America have made an even more foolish decision, a decision that will go down in history as the greatest betrayal the democratic establishment has ever perpetrated on the black community. White liberals, the very same white liberals that Malcolm X, also murdered by a crazed gunman, decried in his Ballot or the Bullet speech as nothing more than impostors, have once again shown their true colors. They have refused again and again and again to address the issues of a police force that is out of control. Just today there was a report of an officer who was caught helping a known criminal run a sex trafficking operation; I had that on a black news station. White liberals had nothing to say about it. The white liberals have refused to hire people of color at the same rate that they hire their white friends. Multiple studies have proven this to be true and none of these studies have been taken seriously by white liberals. White liberals have refused to protect voting rights, instead opting to promote the same bullshit line that they will get around to it once the pandemic is over. The pandemic is not going to be over anytime soon. A Business Insider article released today clearly demonstrated that vaccination rates have been artificially inflated by data collectors, and are much lower than originally thought. So the question becomes, what is keeping voters of color in the Democratic party anymore? What is their reason for staying? I can tell you right now that they "at least he's not Trump" argument will only get you so far. That motivates me to go to the polls, but it does not motivate blacks in states with voter ID laws and a lack of transportation to get to the polls. It doesn't motivate young people either, and that is your base if you are a member of the Democratic party of same. This rise in crime will not cease. You have doomed yourselves because you have refused to give people the chance to dream. You have refused to listen and so now the backlash will ensue. A man with an extraordinary mind doomed for the ordinary by no fault of his own will fight for what is rightfully his. He gets bold.  

You have to learn to laugh at life, not because it is the right thing to do, but because it will make you lighthearted, and therefore much less likely to fall prey to the ravaging beast of despair. Despair plagues America more so than any other wealthy nation in the world. Everyone is so miserable because everyone is so damn serious. Even the humor in America is used as a political battering ram, not as a way to make others laugh. Earlier today I found myself being lectured by Trevor Noah about China. Noah was going on about the imperialist implications of Chinese colonialism, which is not really the funniest of topics. Yet I hear tell that Trevor Noah was once a standup comedian who was actually pretty funny. The Daily Show also used to be funny; I remember laughing for hours on end while watching Jon Stewart. But now the show is so damn serious I feel like I’m watching an old episode of 60 Minutes. Seriously though, why do we have to be so serious all of the time? Is it a requirement or something? Must we be dull? Does every news network have to fixate over the leader of China? Is there really nothing else to talk about but communism? Politics in general is a joke. Why not make fun of it for crying out loud? They give you the material for free for fuck’s sake. I mean, I get it. I get it. Times are tough, but times are always tough. That is why we have humor; that is why we laugh at our problems instead of stressing ourselves out by overanalyzing them. We must learn to laugh again. We must make American politics funny again. Enough with this ridiculous melodrama. Modern day American politics reads much like a nineties soap opera. Will Ted Cruz finally find his testicles today? Will Rand Paul say yet another bat shit crazy thing and get away with it? Will the Supreme Court finally outlaw sex? Find out next time on the Dumb and the Feckless. You have to laugh. You have to smile. You have to because if you don’t, then you will be sad, sadder than you have ever been in your entire life, and you will forget the joy of laughter, the comfort that it brings. Stop trying to make everything so goddamn serious; it ain’t that serious. Life is a joke. Learn to laugh at it. Learn to take in stride. If someone tries to get you down, just laugh at them, or at least tell some jokes that aren't so damn boring. Nothing in life can be taken seriously, even death. Funerals should not be a time for mourning, but for celebration. Sure, a wonderful person is now gone, but they are also no longer in pain, and the person who is gone now lives within you. You should not tarnish their memory with sadness. You should celebrate their amazing life by using their memory spread joy and love to all who need it. They would have wanted that. No one who passes away wants their loved ones to suffer for it. That is what you want, but it is not always about what you want. Losing one's career can be quite painful; there is nothing more miserable than watching a dream die. But dreams are born from laughter. A child gets great joy from building and creating. A dream is your creation. You must learn to laugh again so that you can resurrect your dreams, so that they can rise again from the tomb of grief. Grief has its place, but grief does not have to be miserable; it does not have to send you into despair. Despair has no place in life; it must be left for the dead. I slept in a car. I have been terribly ill. I have lost loved ones. I have lost careers. I have lost friends. There were days where I thought I might starve. I got through it all by laughing. Do not be afraid to let go of your pain. Send your misery on its way with a joyous laugh. Laugh out loud when the tears well in your eyes. Dance when you tremble with fear. Sing a joyous song in spite of your melancholy woes. I know it is difficult, but so is life, and if you hate difficulty, then you hate your life as well. Embrace difficulty. Enjoy pain. Laugh.Every Brave New Word needs a bit of Antic Hay.

Running an internet search today is a lot like being in one of those old VHS video rental stores. “Be kind and rewind” is the title of almost every article, every news report, every youtube video is nothing but odd praises and mythos of kindness. “Kindness 101: What Is Kindness and How Do You Teach It?” by inspirekindness.com Sure sounds nice, but why do we have to teach kindness? Why does it need to be inspired? Because people are mean, that’s why. You have to teach kindness because, if you don’t, everyone will just go around being nasty to each other all the time. But, if your lessons were working at least a little bit, would you have to write so many damn articles about being kind? Would you have to give classes on kindness to beat it into people’s heads? “The Importance of Kindness” by Psychology Today. Would you look at that? You need a psychologist to tell you to be kind. So do psychopaths. “The Importance Of Kindness” by myfoothold.org Brilliant, that will do it. Tell everyone how important kindness is and there you go, instant paradise on earth! Just like that, no more problems, instant bliss, as long as you work hard enough. Then, when it does not happen, when the world is just as mean as it always has been, all internet gurus need to do is run a quick Google search, direct you to their article and say, “see, I told you so.” But can you really learn to be kind? Can you really teach someone who has no interest in helping other people that helping others is good? And, if you do, how do you go about it? America, like much of the Western world, is based on a rather clumsy, poorly thought out, system of rewards and punishments. If you do well on the test you get a free pizza. If you do well at your job you get to keep making money. If you are a good enough fighter, perhaps a boxing career is in the works, as long as you are good enough that is. But if you are not good enough, if you fail, even in the slightest, the punishments are unleashed. No pizza for you if you fail that test. You have to study now. We punish learners by forcing them to read. Reading is a punishment in our education system. If you do not produce adequately at work, perhaps your hours will be cut or perhaps you will be sacked all together. We improve our workers by communicating to them that they are useless and not worthy of our trust, not worthy of one simple mistake. Uh-oh, you did not make weight this month so no more boxing career for you. So the boxer goes off and jumps from miserable job to miserable job. We punish our fighters with unbearable torture. So what of kindness? Well, the reward is supposedly feeling good about yourself; you get to feel good about yourself for being kind. If you’re not kind enough, then no one will be kind to you. Feeling good about yourself is the reward. But shouldn’t you always feel good about yourself? Isn’t that just a basic way of getting through the day? We ignore those who are unkind. But does that make them kind to us? I think not, otherwise there would not be so many articles littered all over the internet on the benefits of kindness. Realize this and you will be free of all this: kindness and decency are one and the same. Do not help others for rewards; do not try to reap benefits from basic decency. Do not try to be kind to others. Life is not performance art. You are not trying to impress the audience here. There is no camera rolling. You help others because that is how the human race has survived, not because you will get a cookie for it later. Do you want to survive? Do you want to live? Then be kind. There is no need to romanticize such an important part of our evolutionary biology. Kindness, otherwise known as human decency, saves lives and it could save your life as well. Do not feed someone to teach them a lesson. Feed someone because they need food and they could die a violent death if you don't. Be practical about your charity. Do not give expecting things in return. That is all you need.

American religion is on the decline, and it does not appear as if it will rebound anytime soon. Decades of hellfire preaching, gender stereotypes, “conversion therapy”, witch hunting, and wild accusations have finally pushed over half of the nations out of the pews. But the most prevalent factor you see in the modern church that is turning people off to organized worship is the rise of Christian fundamentalism. American Christian fundamentalism in particular is perhaps the nastiest, meanest and most unforgiving ideology to ever reach America’s shores. The fundamentalists Christians have turned American churches, once fairly harmless community organizations that specialized in charitable events, into political battlegrounds for the sanctity of mankind. Many American preachers stand on street corners shouting vile insults at passersby, threatening them with eternal hellfire for being gay or for masturbating or for wearing short clothes or for using demon technology (preacher talk for anything invented after the 1950s) or for getting vaccinated, and on and on the seemingly never ending list of demonic infractions goes. You cannot be yourself at church. You can only be what the preacher wants you to be, a numb, mindless sycophant. There was a time in America where you could still hold onto your identity and attend church, a time where you did not have to be perfect. Now the preachers demand perfection from their congregants. But there are no perfect people and so the churches are emptying like never before. And the preachers arrogantly huff and puff and say, “good, go; I don’t want any people around who are not in full submission to Christ.” Well, the people have gone; they have obeyed the commands of their preachers. “Americans' membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup's eight-decade trend. In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, down from 50% in 2018 and 70% in 1999.” (Gallup, 2021) Did the church really think it would survive after telling women what to wear? Did the church believe it would get away with stripping women of their right to choose? Did the preachers really think that they could continue to brush the rampant sexual molestation of juvenile congregants under the rug for years to come? Did the preachers believe that demanding cash payments or “tithes” from their congregants would be in fashion during a recession, which was then followed by a depression? Did the holier than thou folk really think that people would give up their birth control, their explicit lyrics, their miniskirts, their cannabis, their vaccines, their college degrees, all so that they could be good little children and maybe go to heave some day? Why would the church think that? Does the church not realize that religion can be done at home, that spirituality can be an individual practice, that some people do not even require spirituality? I do not know the holy folks were thinking when they got involved in politics, when they broke the sacred doctrine of separation of church and state, when they decided to legislate their beliefs instead of practicing them. It is true that the fundamentalists have the courts, that they have the Congress, that they, temporarily anyway, are in control of the national narrative. But as the churches empty, so will the church coffers. The wealthy church donors of the day may keep the church afloat for a time, but their children will grow up and spend their money elsewhere. "The decline in church membership is primarily a function of the increasing number of Americans who express no religious preference. Over the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religion has grown from 8% in 1998-2000 to 13% in 2008-2010 and 21% over the past three years." (Gallup) 

I will begin this by stating that I have a child of my own and that I plan on having more as well, but I am still pro-choice, not pro-life. I will also say out loud that I do not have any hopes of changing anyone’s mind about abortion. People decide on the issue when they are young and their opinions on this issue rarely change. You cannot really change anyone’s mind on such politically charged issues and so I do not see the point in trying any longer. There is too much romantic heroism involved in the whole save the children argument to argue scientifically or even logically when it comes to this issue. So many American men view themselves as the saviors of women that having any kind of sound, logical discussing about abortion is pretty much impossible. All the pro-lifers have to do anymore is take out their violins and start reciting poetry about saving the poor little babies, the poor little babies that they do not want to pay for. It is a fact that most pro-lifers are actively seeking to dismantle and destroy the welfare system. Well, how do you afford all of these new children popping up without welfare? Have we really grown so childish that we are expecting people to not have children until they can afford them? When has abstinence only ever worked? When has prayer ever stopped people from having children that they are not prepared to care for? Never, but pro-lifers do not care about that. They do not really care about the well-being of the child. I know that for a fact. I know that I have not even spoken to most of my pro-life “friends” ever since my child was born. I have not even gotten so much as a hello from my pro-life friends since my child’s birth. Pro-lifers are not lovers of life, but lovers of god, and god is a ruthless character in the holy scriptures, turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to the suffering of millions. Well, people try to be like their god and so they ignore difficult problems and make silly leaps of faith. No, none of this is meant to change your mind. I simply wish to inform you of the hell on earth that will soon unfold because of this very hasty and uninformed decision. I can almost guarantee that most pro-lifers have never even heard of rehoming. While that may sound like something a person does with pets, parents in America are starting to frequent the practice of simply putting their child up for auction to the highest bidder on the internet. Some people even throw child pageants so that prospective parents can audition children that they may potentially adopt. These possible parents to be can even choose that they do not want a rehomed child after they have already adopted them. That’s right, the rehoming market has a return policy; if you dislike your adopted child, you can simply take it back, as long as you have the receipt. I thought that pro-lifers believed that children were not things, that kids were people with rights. But if these kids can simply be auctioned off on the internet to pedophiles, rapists and perverts then the kids have no rights. They are simply pawns in a political chess match between the right and the left. You cannot force parents to keep their children and even if you were to make a law forcing them to do so, the child would suffer in poverty or just suffer with the knowledge that their parents never wanted them. Child abandonment under the guise of this legal practice of rehoming will skyrocket when roe v. wade is overturned. Children will be thrown into this rehoming system, a system which is full of child predators just waiting for their next young victim. And so as America continues to punish poor people by cutting their benefits we will soon see a whole generation of Americans brought up in a dystopian childcare system that essentially legitimizes child abuse. If that is pro-life then it is a harsh life indeed. And so it is becoming apparent that no one in America really cares about children. They only care about their political agendas. Nothing new

One would think that cosmetic surgeries and having the appropriate look would not be required for spirituality. After all, religions often preach that they are places of acceptance where a person does not need to feel self-conscious about who they are. If this were actually the case, and not just a bit of clever propaganda, then we should be allowed to look and dress however we please. But, all too often, in religious organizations across the world, we are shamed into looking a certain way in order to fit in with people who call themselves "normal". But when you strip away all of the highfalutin language in whatever holy scripture you are reading, it becomes quite clear that these requirements for proper looks are nothing more than a holy fashion show meant to distinguish the chose ones from the "unclean". On this version of "holy cosmetics" (there is no way I can fit all of the odd requirements for looks into one episode so expect a part two, three and maybe even four) I will focus on circumcision, namely male circumcision. Do not get me wrong. I appreciate the severity of the harm that female circumcision does to women, but I also think that it gets a lot more press than male circumcision because, in western culture anyway, mutilating the penis is seen as normal, while mutilating the clitoris is generally discouraged. But it is important to note that there is no real medical benefit to circumcision in the modern world. While it is true that circumcision tends to prevent urinary tract infections, antibiotics can now quickly fix any problems with the urinary tract and they are widely available to the public. American parents and medical organizations are one of the only ones in the western world today to view circumcision as being medically beneficial. Many other western nations have found no real benefit to the ancient cosmetic surgery. “American parents are almost alone in the Western world in their desire  to separate boys from their foreskins for reasons other than religion,”  Jessica Wapner writes. “… In 2010, for instance, the Royal Dutch Medical Association reviewed the same studies the AAP looked at...it concluded that the health benefits of circumcision are ‘questionable,  weak, and likely to have little public health relevance in a Western  context." This does not sound like science to me; it sounds like culture run amuck to the point of where even esteemed organizations are making arguments for surgeries on children when they are probably not even necessary. "Today, about 75 percent of males aged 15 and older in the U.S. are circumcised for non-religious reasons, according to the World Health Organization. That compares with about 6 percent in Great Britain, 30 percent in Canada and 59 percent in Australia." (MinnPost, Susan Perry) So, how did circumcision become so popular? It turns out we have the Victorian era to thank, an era that also brought us the fashion industry and cosumerism, two other cultural phenomenons that have no practical use in the real world. Contrary to popular belief, Americans did not adopt the practice of circumcision from the Old Testament; that is where Jewish and some Muslim people got it from. "As Wapner explains, American families began adopting the practice in  large numbers for non-religious reasons during the late 19th century,  mainly because of misguided beliefs among some physicians that it would  cure several specific nerve-related ailments and reduce masturbation,  which many in the medical community had declared was linked to epilepsy,  mental illness and a host of other problems." Are you starting to see why this is so upsetting to me? Doctors used to believe that masturbation caused epilepsy and mental illness and so they used circumcision to discourage masturbation, even though there was no solid evidence for this.  

There are very few things that surprise me anymore in life. Rising crime? I called that at the beginning of the pandemic. Authoritarian attacks on democracy? Ha! I lived through the Bush junior years for crying out loud. Conspiracy theories becoming mainstream narratives? Yawn, I used to be a right winger for crying out loud. With all that I have been through it is difficult for me to even believe that I can be surprised anymore. I mean, I got thrown off a train after falling ill and left for dead in liberal San Francisco for crying out loud. It does not get much more surprising than that! Or does it? The biggest surprises are the ones that you would never see coming, the kind of surprises that shatter your reality and force you to reevaluate the life you are leading. Well, consider me surprised. It is not that I ever really liked cute animal pictures and videos. To be completely honest, I was rather indifferent about them. People love animals and so they are always shoving some phone in your face with a picture or video of a cat or dog or elephant or whatever. Apart from being mildly annoyed about this modern phenomenon (excuse me for not wanting to see some video about some goofy animal slobbering all over the place while I eat my dinner; I sincerely do not apologize), I never really gave it a second thought. And why would I? I mean, it is just an adorable animal, and there is nothing wrong with finding animals adorable…unless the people who are posting those videos have ulterior motives. On the internet cute animals are big business. You cannot go on social media without having a sleepy cat or a curious seal flopping across your screen. These pictures and videos effortlessly receive thousands and even millions of likes and comments, which makes them some of the most popular content on the internet. Content creation means big money and so we must follow that money to find who is profiting from all of these videos. It turns out most of them, about 70%, are distributed by two companies: Junkin Media and Viral Hog. And wouldn’t you know it, neither of these companies has any policy in place to prevent the spread of misinformation, more commonly known as conspiracy theories. But cute animals pictures and videos cannot spread conspiracy theories, right? Wrong. All a content creator needs to do to get you to keep consuming their content is to get you to like it once or twice. After that point, your social media feed will automatically recommend all of their content to you. You do not have to sign up for this process; it happens every time you like something. So, what kind of content are you exposing yourself to when you like those cutesy animal videos? It turns out that one of the largest producers of such content is a little paper known as The Epoch Times, a far right conspiracy rag owned by a follower of a religious cult, which just happens to be Trump supporter’s favorite newspaper. Though The Epoch Times, like all news organizations today, promotes itself as unbiased, the pro-Trump rag has relentlessly spread false information about voter fraud in the 2020 election, pushed the unproven idea that China invented Covid-19 in a lab as a plot to destroy democracy, and unabashedly publicized the January sixth pro Trump rally that turned into an attempted coup. Unbiased you say? Sure, if you consider far right extremism to be without bias. Another promoter to cute animal videos is none other than the world renowned quack himself, Dr. Joseph Mercola. Mercola, a snake oil salesman who has advised patients to engage in unproven "natural" therapies as opposed to taking real medicine, has supported the false claim that twenty-two of the vitamins that he sells on his website can prevent, treat and even cure Covid-19, though no evidence for this exist. Mercola has made several false claims about the medicinal value of supplements he just happens to sell. I think I'll pass on your next animal video. I'd rather live past thirty. 

For years now we have heard philosophers, psychiatrists, psychologists, and political theorists make grand assumptions about the nature of mob violence. Commentary on “the mob” often assumes a natural progression toward chaos that is somehow inherently a part of society, even though such a thing has never been definitively proven. “The mob believes everything it is told, provided only that it be repeated over and over. Provided too that its passions, hatreds, fears are catered to” (Alexandre Koyre). ““Pilate was required to release one of the prisoners, so he gave the mob the choice of Jesus or Barabbas, a notorious murderer and insurrectionist-in otherwords, someone who incites mobs. Again, the mob "spoke with one voice" demanding "with loud shouts" that Jesus be crucified” (Ann Coulter). ““...when like-minded people get together, they often end up thinking a more extreme version of what they thought before they started to talk to one another” (Cass R. Sunstein). Such proclamations are certainly comforting; they make one sleep well at night. “Well,” a panicky person romanticizes, “I’ll just stay inside my room then and never interact with others. That will stop the mob from infecting my sacred thoughts.” But locking yourself away from groups will not stop riots, nor will it prevent that mob from potentially lashing out at you. The idea that riotous behavior is contagious, requiring something as simple as one act of violence to enact an entire stream of calamitous behavior, is a misinterpretation of what is actually happening, and so boycotting groups will not protect you from such violence. The calls for less group behavior is counter active to preventing mob behavior for the only thing that prevents mob behavior is complete and total integration and integration requires a commitment to understanding and appreciating others, not barricading yourself behind a wall of books or scratching down some nasty words about the “herd”. It is also important to remember that what is considered violent at any particular moment varies greatly depending upon the society that you are in. I am not justifying violence; I am simply stating that in segregated societies, culture is always king, while the law remains secondary. A society of mostly poor people are not going to care as much about things like theft, especially if the thefts are occurring only at major chain stores and overpriced mansions. Perhaps even more important, those who write the history of events tend to skew reality in order to demonize those who may have acted irrationally for very logical reasons. Was it really irrational for people to riot after witnessing cops being acquitted for the violent beating of Rodney King? Are you even aware that, a few months prior to that beating, a 15 year old girl name Latasha Harlins was murdered by a store owner for attempting to steal an orange and that, though investigators proved she was reaching in her wallet for money to pay for the orange, “liberal” Los Angeles bequeathed that the store owner be fined a mere $500 and never sent him to prison? What is rational to a person who is well taken care of and thus content to be a fully integrated member of society, is insanity to a sequestered people who feel persecuted by the ruling classes because they have been abandoned by that society. So this is not simply “like-minded” people committing violence, but persecuted out groups who lash out at the power structures who have harmed them, whether that be big business, big government or the police. Of course riots do not accomplish tangible goals; they do not feed or clothe people, for example, not in the long term anyway, and so people like me will never be interested in participating in them. But who is to say that the mob’s goal is to accomplish anything prudent? Perhaps the emotional response it used to stage a sort of political urgency in the populous. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. theorized “riots are the voice of the unheard”.