The Emperor and The State of His Apparel

Content note: this piece is a forceful political opinion and uses strong language. I do not condone violence, threats, or illegal activity in any form. When I say “take it back,” I mean nonviolent, civic action: vote, organize, protest lawfully, support community-led solutions, and hold public officials and institutions accountable through existing legal channels.

If you want to take action, check out Vote.org or local community organizing groups.

Waking up every morning and drinking my cup of coffee while reading the latest news has lost all its charm. I am so fed up with having to read article after article, or hear segment after segment, day after day, week after week, that American Constitutional protections are being attacked.

Are you an American? Or even perhaps if you’re just watching things play out from another country… You might have noticed that witnessing the collapse of not only the American culture, but also of the complete abandonment and disregard for the principles that have guided our country for 250 years, is leaving you with a sense of overwhelm. Right?

We’re all feeling pretty deep in over our heads. I think that can be said across political aisles. I’m frustrated, and I get a strong inclination that these sentiments are spread across the country. There are so many issues we all have to face day-to-day. Life is getting more complicated, and times aren’t easy. There were promises made and never kept. We were told that if we worked hard and did the right things, we would be able to live comfortable lives.

We were indoctrinated to believe that giving the tax cuts for the wealthy and allowing corporations to masquerade as citizens would spread wealth, not concentrate it. We believed the snake’s tongue before our own better wisdom. They said that the redistricting would lead to elections that would be fairer, and we let it happen.

We let all of it happen.

As I sit here, reading the news and sipping on my coffee, I can’t help to think that we’re still letting it all happen. We’re letting corruption spread its lies, and we are selling our country to it. America is for sale, and the spoils are for the people who have all their assets in foreign banks. The proceeds from the sale will fund their ability to seclude themselves in some dream-like tropical castle hidden behind a gate and walls of depravity. They won’t have to face the coming storm. They won’t have to worry about the needs of their family and whether those needs are being met. They won’t have to fear for their health and wealth. No, we allowed them to hoard all the riches and then build up massive defense mechanisms into the system that is exacerbating the economic gap.

Silence is Compliance

Overwhelmed. I know, we’re all feeling it. I can sense it. I know that everyone is thinking the same thing that I am. I don’t like what I am seeing, but what can I do to change it? We’re all feeling powerless and hopeless. That despair is prominent on both political parties. By design.

This didn’t start last year when he moved into the White House. This didn’t start during the pandemic. It didn’t start in 2016, either. It started long ago, back when certain people of a certain persuasion began to feel the grip of power and control slipping from their grip. So, they started moving lines so that certain demographics, which held certain phobia-centric beliefs, were grouped together in enough concentration to give power to the underdog. Only, this underdog is rich… Fat and stinking rich. This underdog owns the land, the means of production, the flow of wealth, and now it owns our Constitution.

Distract and Divide

For years, this has been building up. Some staunch old white men sitting in their leather armchairs in some cigar lounge that excludes anybody who’s required to maintain a 50 lb lifting capability. They do this not because they believe that they are better than you, but because they know it. They know your bills are piling up. They know that it’s getting harder and harder to feed yourself and your family. They know that you don’t have anything left over to permit you to enjoy what little time you have off. While we extend our work weeks by taking overtime or applying for second and third jobs, other countries who used to look up to us are reducing their work weeks while maintain or increasing standards of living. While we fight inflation, they manufacture shrinkflation. But, they know this.

They know because they designed it that way.

When they sent our jobs overseas decades ago, they used the money to buy us all pacifiers, and we put them in our mouths and shut up. And now we’re sitting here, reading the news, drinking our coffee, and sucking on our pacifiers because we don’t know what to do.

I do.

It’s time to take the god-damned NOOKIE out of our mouths and use them to speak up. It’s time that we, those of us who still hold ethical and moral compasses, make the tough decisions. Many people want to flee and protect their families. But for most of us, that is only a dream because the middle class was eroded before we were old enough to vote.

It was a rigged game long before those towels fell. The American Dream slipped from our grasp, and now we’re no longer able to pretend that it’s just a bad nightmare from which we are going to wake up. No, we’re realizing that it’s the nightmare that we’re waking up to. And it’s the damned pacifier with a screen that is showing us our fate. It’s one of the very devices used to placate the masses.

Wake up, folks…

Shit isn’t just going to magically get better. Prayer and hope work; there’s data to support that. But I’ve always believed that when you ask a higher power for help, you only receive that help when you begin the work to help yourself. However, that can only happen if you stop living a lie and admit that your life sucks. The economy sucks. Our jobs suck. The pay sucks. The benefits, if any, suck.

It all sucks. It’s all second-rate bullshit that is spun up just to keep you thinking things aren’t what you know them to be. Things are shitty. Things are shitty for almost everybody. Most Americans are one or two paychecks away from being homeless, by design. They want you to be worried about how you’re going to pay your cell phone bill so that you’ll spend your time working and not watching the news. They’ll make sure that even when you have time, energy, patience, and decide to watch the news that it will be fogged with opinions and sponsors.

And when you can pay your cell phone bill, they’ll tell you It’s not enough, you need a new cell phone. That will keep you working for a while. Then they’ll tell you that your car broke down, because it’s just not made to last anymore. But, that’s capitalism, right? That’s just the way it is.

No, that’s tyranny.

There is a tyrant in the office. He is surrounded by sycophants who must have golden thrones to shit upon. It’s time you woke up and realized his closet is empty. He is not your savior. You are. He does not know your best interests; he cannot fight for them. Those people, the ones whispering in his ear, they are the ones you work for. They control the flow of cash. From the jobs we work, which give us our taxed income, to the brands and bullshit we buy with that money. It’s all a big circle and it begins and ends at the top.

The cake is not real, folks.

Something really pissed me off the other day. It lit my fuse. There I was, reading the news and drinking my coffee again, and I happened to be reading an article in which the mogul, Musk, said to the president, “We should reunite, hang together. If we don’t, we shall surely hang separately.” Or something to that effect. This was overheard by a journalist, I guess. If you’ve heard mogul Musk speak before, you know that is not his style.

Do you want to know why? It’s because it’s not mogul Musk’s words. The words were first spoken by Benjamin Franklin when he said, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

Franklin said that because he knew that he and his fellow Americans would be hanged for treason if they fought for their freedom. These words he uses are not his words to use. They are our words. Our history. Our fight for freedom!

Read between the lines, folks. It’s a consolidation of power. The oligarchy is hedging its bets on the commander in thief, and those bets will pay off, mark my words.

That is, unless we stop lying to ourselves.

Power can’t be bought. Even in a capitalistic society. Power doesn’t come from hidden bank accounts. Power doesn’t come from shuffling laws, so you can shuffle your money. Power doesn’t come from sneaking around tax laws. Power doesn’t come from subjugating people. Power doesn’t come from fabricating lies and manipulating.

Power comes from truth. And it only comes when we admit to it. It comes when we stop telling ourselves that we are powerless. The belief that one person can’t do anything has been indoctrinated into us. The idea that it has to be this way is fake and has been used to keep you and your neighbors from doing something about it.

They took our land. They took our jobs. They took our money. They took our truth and country.

It’s time that we take it all back. It’s time that we stop believing their lies. It’s time to stop blaming your neighbors, your friends, and your family. It’s time to stop subscribing to division and instead rally and unite under the principles that this country, our country, was founded on.

We’ve already given the throne to the king. Now, it’s time to cross the moat and show him that America has no kings! It’s time that they hang separately.

They have divided us and distracted us LONG ENOUGH.

It’s time that we divide them!