Tools for clarity, survival, and awakening. Includes recommended reading, viewing, resilience resources, and mythic maps for navigating an unstable world.
Before power captures institutions, it captures perception.
Democracy does not collapse in a single dramatic seizure. It erodes when citizens no longer share a coherent reality. When people inhabit different informational worlds, self-government becomes nearly impossible.
This is not accidental. It is engineered.
And it begins in the mind.
In psychology, apperception describes how new information is absorbed through existing mental frameworks. We do not see the world as it is. We see it through the models we have already built. Every experience is filtered, interpreted, and woven into prior belief.
When those mental models are distorted, reality itself becomes pliable.
The defining political struggle of our era is not merely about laws or elections. It is about perception.
What happens to democracy when perception itself is privatized?
The Manufacturing of Reality: Social Media Is Training Us to Obey
We Already Perceive Only a Fractionof the Manufactured Reality Swirling Around Us
Modern physics offers a humbling insight: human perception is inherently partial.
Quantum mechanics reveals that observation affects what is observed. String theory proposes that what we experience may be a thin โbraneโ floating within a far larger โbulkโ of dimensions beyond our sensory reach. Whether one takes these models literally or metaphorically, the lesson is clear: reality is deeper and more complex than our immediate awareness.
We are always navigating a thin perceptual membrane stretched across something vastly larger.
Healthy societies expand that membrane. They cultivate curiosity, humility, and cognitive flexibility. They encourage citizens to refine their models of reality as new information emerges.
But what happens when the informational environment becomes saturated with noise?
Instead of expanding perception, we flood it.
Twenty-four-hour media cycles. Algorithmic reinforcement. Outrage as currency. Endless scroll. Contradiction layered upon contradiction.
When the signal-to-noise ratio collapses, people do not become more discerning.
They become fatigued.
And fatigue narrows perception.
The Manufacturing of Reality: Image from Another Reality Is Leaking into Ours
Lenin: Capture the Narrative First (The Manufacturing of Reality Is Old)
Vladimir Lenin understood that revolutions are won in the realm of narrative before they are secured in the realm of governance.
Control the story, and you control interpretation. Control interpretation, and you shape allegiance.
If every event is filtered through a single ideological lens, complexity disappears. Alternative explanations become suspect. Dissent becomes betrayal.
Once perception is reorganized, resistance feels irrational. The new order feels inevitable.
The first victory is cognitive.
Hitler: Replace Reality with Myth (The Manufacturing of Reality Is Repetitive)
Adolf Hitler refined this strategy by fusing mythic identity with grievance.
Hero. Enemy. Betrayal. Destiny.
These are archetypal structures. They bypass analytical reasoning and move directly into emotional circuitry. Facts lose relevance because belonging becomes paramount.
Myth simplifies a chaotic world. It offers clarity where complexity feels overwhelming. It offers identity where economic instability erodes dignity.
When myth overtakes shared reality, institutions weaken. Courts, legislatures, journalism โ these depend on a baseline agreement about what is real. Remove that baseline, and democratic structure becomes hollow.
The Manufacturing of Reality: Hitler’s Bunker (Remind you of anyone today obsessed with death, destruction, and bunkers?)
Trump: Saturation as Strategy (The Manufacturing of Reality: Still Happening Now)
Donald Trump operates in a different media ecosystem โ one defined not by centralized propaganda but by fragmentation and saturation.
The strategy is not uniformity.
It is overload.
Constant statements. Contradictions. Provocations. Breaking news layered upon breaking news. The informational field becomes so dense that evaluation becomes exhausting.
When everything demands attention, sustained attention collapses.
Exhaustion becomes compliance.
This is not merely personality or spectacle. It is perceptual warfare in an age where attention is the most valuable commodity.
The Manufacturing of Reality: Little King Trump
Economic Stress Narrows the Mind, an Essential Ingredient in the Manufacturing of Reality
Economic precarity intensifies this dynamic.
Research on scarcity shows that when individuals are preoccupied with financial insecurity, cognitive bandwidth shrinks. Immediate survival crowds out long-term reasoning. Abstract policy debates lose urgency compared to rent, food, healthcare.
Under chronic stress:
Simplified narratives feel stabilizing.
Strong leaders feel clarifying.
Identifiable enemies feel grounding.
The mind narrows because it must.
A narrowed mind is easier to guide.
This is not a moral failing. It is a cognitive reality.
And it makes perceptual manipulation more effective.
The Manufacturing of Reality: Always Involves Corruption and Income Inequality
The Loss of Interior Expansion
There was a time in Western intellectual history when alternative cosmologies emphasized interior awakening. Early Gnostic traditions, later marginalized and pruned from orthodoxy, suggested that reality is layered โ and that human beings possess the capacity to awaken beyond surface appearances.
Whether one accepts those metaphysics literally is beside the point.
Psychologically, such traditions cultivated depth. They encouraged inward exploration alongside outward structure.
Much of Western civilization instead consolidated around more hierarchical metaphysical models: authority centralized, truth mediated, salvation externalized. Over centuries, this narrowed the manuscript of the mind.
In a universe that physics now describes as multidimensional and probabilistic, our cultural habits often remain rigid and binary.
We stare at the brane and forget the bulk.
The Manufacturing of Reality: Inner Space
The Privatization of Perception, Critical Ingredient in the Manufacturing of Reality
Today, perception is no longer shaped only by culture, family, or local community.
It is curated.
Algorithms โ owned and operated by private corporations โ determine what rises into visibility and what sinks into obscurity. They optimize for engagement, not coherence. For emotional activation, not contemplative depth.
The result is fragmentation.
Different citizens inhabit different informational universes. Shared reference points dissolve. A common civic narrative becomes difficult to sustain.
Democracy requires an informational commons. It requires enough overlap in perception that disagreement can occur within a shared frame.
When perception itself is privatized, the commons erodes.
The danger is not disagreement.
The danger is epistemic isolation.
The Manufacturing of Reality: The Art of Confusion
Noise Versus Signal, You Must Know the Different to Avoid Getting Caught Up in the Manufacturing of Reality
The deeper cost of this manufactured reality is not simply political instability.
It is human diminishment.
When attention is perpetually captured, individuals lose access to their own interior signal. Reflection is replaced by reaction. Depth is replaced by immediacy.
Discoherent noise overwhelms the perceptual membrane.
And when that happens, people forget who they are โ and what they are capable of becoming.
Democracy is not sustained by outrage alone. It is sustained by citizens capable of sustained thought, capable of soft focus, capable of seeing beyond the immediate stimulus.
In martial arts, instructors speak of using โsoft eyesโ โ widening the field of vision rather than locking onto a single threat. Soft eyes allow you to perceive the whole field.
Hard focus is useful in crisis.
But permanent hard focus leads to blindness.
A society trapped in permanent hard focus โ outrage, fear, reaction โ loses its depth perception.
The Manufacturing of Reality: Ordinary People Trapped In a Rage Machine and Economic Deprivation
Expanding the Perceptual Field
The defense of democracy is inseparable from the defense of consciousness.
This does not require ideological conformity. It requires cognitive expansion.
Strengthening apperception rather than surrendering it. Restoring signal amid noise. Reclaiming interior depth in a saturated world. Widening the brane.
Power trains the mind before it takes the state. It reshapes narrative before it reshapes law. It narrows perception before it narrows rights.
The counter-movement must therefore begin in perception as well.
Slow down the feed. Diversify sources. Engage opposing arguments without caricature. Create spaces for sustained conversation. Practice soft eyes.
Because the most radical act in an age of manufactured reality may be this:
To expand your awareness rather than contract it.
Democracy depends on citizens who can tolerate complexity without fleeing into myth. Citizens who can endure uncertainty without surrendering to authoritarian clarity. Citizens who recognize that their perception is partial โ and who remain willing to refine it.
We inhabit only a fraction of reality.
The question is whether we will allow that fraction to be engineered for us.
Or whether we will widen it ourselves.
Before power captures the state, it captures the mind.
The preservation of democracy begins by reclaiming it.
The Manufacturing of Reality: Visualization of Mind and Thought as Resonance and Waves
The Manufacturing of Reality: Feature Archetypal Animation
Music: Pulse of the Feed 03:10 StabilityMid-tempo (80โ95 BPM) cinematic ambient electronica with pulsing synth bass, soft glitch percussion, airy pads, and sparse piano motifs. Minor-key harmony with subtle tension, occasional filtered risers, no flashy solos. Mood: investigative, uneasy, reflectiveโbuilding toward clarity and resolve.
Thatโs all that stands between us and a future where democracy remains a living, breathing reality โ or one where it becomes a hollow shell, ruled by those whoโve mastered the art of manipulation. Forty days is not much time, yet itโs enough to decide whether โWe the Peopleโ still means anything, or whether those words become a historical relic, muttered in classrooms and campaign speeches but stripped of their power in practice.
This isnโt melodrama. Itโs math.
Last year, over 90 million Americans didnโt vote. Ninety million voices silent while decisions about their lives, freedoms, bodies, wages, and futures were made without them. That silence wasnโt accidental โ it was engineered. And in the next 40 days, the same forces that fed that silence are working overtime to do it again.
The question is: will we let them?
How Authoritarians Win Before a Single Ballot Is Cast
We often imagine authoritarianism arriving like a thunderclap โ jackboots in the streets, constitutions burned, leaders seized in the night. But in reality, it arrives more quietly. It seeps in like a fog, softening resistance, numbing outrage, dulling the will to act. And it does this long before a single ballot is cast.
Democracy on the Brink: Authoritarian T-shirt — Wear It to Your Next March | The Quip Collection
Thereโs a playbook โ one thatโs been used over and over, from the fall of ancient republics to the rise of modern strongmen. And every tactic in that playbook is aimed not at armies or institutions, but at your mind.
Distraction: Flood the public square with endless scandals and meaningless controversies until people tune out. The more chaotic the noise, the harder it is to focus on what truly matters.
Division: Pit neighbor against neighbor, turn every difference into a battlefield, and fracture the collective power that democracy depends on.
Despair: Feed the narrative that nothing changes, that power always wins, that your vote is just a drop in the ocean. A hopeless citizen is a silent citizen.
Disinformation: Twist reality itself until truth becomes a matter of opinion. Once shared facts disappear, democracy โ which depends on them โ dissolves too.
These are not side effects of our political dysfunction; they are the strategy. And theyโre devastatingly effective. As I argue in Sapience: The Moment Is Now, authoritarianism doesnโt just conquer governments โ it colonizes consciousness. It shapes how we perceive reality, how we relate to one another, and how we decide whether to act at all.
The Most Powerful Weapon Authoritarians Use: Your Inaction
If this sounds grim, thatโs because it is. But thereโs also hope buried in this truth โ because it reveals the most powerful weapon authoritarians have is not violence or propaganda. Itโs your inaction.
Democracy on the Brink: Distracted and Sad Super Hero | August 2023 Blog
The 90 million people who stayed home last election werenโt lazy. They were conditioned. Conditioned by decades of messaging designed to convince them that their voice didnโt matter, that โthe systemโ was too corrupt to fix, that politics was something best avoided. And this conditioning starts young.
We are raised in a culture that equates obedience with virtue, that trains us to outsource our agency to systems and experts, that markets passivity as peace. Advertising tells us to consume instead of create. Political rhetoric tells us to hope instead of build. And a 24-hour outrage economy tells us to scroll instead of speak.
Democracy on the Brink: Obey
This is psychological warfare โ and itโs working.
But hereโs the paradox: inaction is exactly what makes the system seem unchangeable. The less we participate, the more power consolidates. The more power consolidates, the more hopeless participation feels. Itโs a feedback loop โ one we have the power to break, if we choose.
What We Can Still Do โ Right Now
Hereโs the good news: this story isnโt over. Forty days is enough time to change its ending.
Democracy on the Brink: VOTE Lawn Sign | The Quip Collection
History isnโt written by those who watch โ itโs written by those who show up. And showing up is simpler, more powerful, and more contagious than most people realize.
Hereโs how:
Vote โ and help three others do the same. Make sure youโre registered, make a plan, and then go beyond yourself. Text friends. Talk to neighbors. Offer a ride. Turn voting from an individual act into a communal one.
Counter disinformation. Lies spread fastest when they go unchallenged. Donโt let them. Speak up in conversations. Share credible sources. Correct falsehoods gently but firmly. Truth still matters โ but only if we defend it.
Interrupt apathy. Change how you talk about politics. Donโt focus only on candidates โ focus on whatโs at stake: democracy, freedom, dignity, future. Remind people that the point isnโt perfection; itโs progress.
Be visible. Yard signs, protest flags, social posts, conversations at the grocery store โ they all matter. Visibility signals to others that theyโre not alone. Thatโs why I created my latest sign reminding people that 90 million didnโt vote last year. Itโs not just a statistic โ itโs a rallying cry.
And if you need tools, check out the Sapient Survival Guide. Itโs built to help ordinary people navigate the psychological battlefield weโre all living in โ and to remind you that resistance isnโt just about politics. Itโs about reclaiming your agency.
Also, right here, part of the Sapience Shop, is The Reckoning Line. Here you will find clothing, decals, yard signs, face masks, protest flags and posters, plus a whole lot more to make your voice heard. And every voice activated, inspires another who is staying silent to stand up, speak up, and rise against this authoritarian take over.
The Reckoning Line
The Reckoning Line
Where silence breaks, truth sharpens, and courage takes its place.
This collection stands at the edge of illusion and awarenessโa space for those who see through the chaos and choose to respond with clarity and conviction. Whether through bold statements, symbolic designs, or quiet defiance, each piece is a marker on the line we must all walk when the moment calls us to reckonโwith ourselves, with history, with the future.
Every democracy reaches a moment like this โ a moment when the future narrows to a single, urgent choice: surrender to fear and fatigue, or stand up and participate.
Ours has arrived.
We are not powerless. We are not voiceless. But we are at risk of believing we are โ and that belief is the most dangerous weapon in the authoritarian arsenal. The antidote isnโt grand gestures or perfect solutions. Itโs small, consistent acts of defiance. Itโs refusing to be silenced. Itโs daring to believe that collective action still matters.
Carl Jung wrote that the โshadowโ โ the darker impulses in ourselves and society โ must be faced and integrated, not ignored. Thatโs what democracy demands of us now: to face the shadow of manipulation, apathy, and fear, and transform it into purpose.
Democracy on the Brink: The Devil Definitely Believes that He Is God | From Sept. 2023 blog
We have 40 days. Forty days to prove that democracy is not a relic of the past, but a living promise to the future. Forty days to reject the fog and see clearly. Forty days to stand up, speak out, and show up.
The future is still ours to write โ but only if we write it together.
๐ Explore & Act
Read:Sapience: The Moment Is Now โ for a deeper dive into the psychological and historical roots of our current crisis.
Equip:Sapient Survival Guide โ tools and insights to stay grounded and active in the age of manipulation.
Signal: Check out the โ90 Million Didnโt Voteโ yard sign and resistance gear โ because sometimes, the simplest act of visibility sparks a conversation that changes everything.
Wait, There Is More
After all the whining, sniviling, and downright lying MAGA did about the 2020 election, cumulating in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, what if it turns out that MAGA stoled the 2024 election… that Trump did not win and that Kamala should be our President today?
Does this sound far fetched?
Listen… and learn.
Democracy on the Brink — Nathan Taylor, Executive Director of Public Engagement for Election Truth Alliance, joins us to discuss discrepancies in the 2024 election and how to bolster election integrity Election Truth Alliance Website: https://electiontruthalliance.org/2024-us-election-analysis/
Democracy on the Brink: Listen to X (who Elon call his minime) tell Tucker how Elon Musk used Star Link (which he calls SpaceX… ‘casue when your name is X, everything is called X, right?) to Do Whatever They Want to Help Trump Win the 2024 Election… “They’ll never know…” … evil laughs….
Itโs late Augustโsummerโs ending, school is starting. Itโs tempting to believe everything is fine, fresh, new again. But look closerโdoes it really feel that way?
We pretend it is just another ordinary day in another ordinary year. But beneath the surface, the world is anything but ordinary. Everywhere, instability hums like a low-grade feverโsometimes spiking, sometimes subsiding, but never truly gone.
Another Ordinary Day in Our Glass and Concrete Cities
We have learned to live inside this fever. We scroll, we consume, we distract ourselves. Yet the cracks widen. Sometimes truth seeps through. Other times it slips back into the fractures, disappearing from awareness as if it were never there.
Carl Jung once warned that ignorance is the greatest evil. Only humans can ignore the obviousโturning a blind eye to suffering, a deaf ear to reason, shutting out both common sense and compassion.
Thoughtful Person in Library
Only man is capable of doing this for only man has grown the ability to scan his inner world and meld the areas of inner illumination with his outer reality, creating something new, something in-between both realms of being.
This ability allowed Homo sapiens to surpass every other being on the planetโa marvelous triumph of consciousness. But every gift carries its shadow. The price of awareness is responsibility, and humanityโs refusal to shoulder that responsibilityโfor self, for others, for the Earthโthreatens to become our undoing.
Meanwhile, our collective ignorance fractures the very reality we depend on to survive. The Earth groans, societies splinter, and yet we look away.
Here are four signs of the instability we are trained not to see:
1. The Climate Clock Keeps Ticking. Wildfires rage in regions once thought untouchable, while floods submerge towns that had no time to recover from the last disaster. Heat records fall, not one by one but in clusters, like dominoes tipping toward collapse. Scientists no longer speak of preventionโonly adaptation. And yet adaptation itself is rationed: those with wealth can buy higher ground and air-conditioned bubbles, while the poor are left to suffocate.
2. Democracy in Name Only. The machinery of democracy grinds onโdebates, rallies, soundbitesโwhile its spirit withers. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and judicial overreach hollow out the promise of representation. Citizens go through the motions of voting, but the choices are narrowed, the outcomes predetermined. It is democracy as theater, staged to reassure, not to empower.
3. War as a Weaponized Distraction. While much of the publicโs attention is turned inward toward partisan spectacle, war grinds on with devastating persistence. Ukraine is still under relentless attack by Putin, and in the wake of Trumpโs hollow claim that he would end the conflict on โday one,โ more Ukrainians have died than the total number of Gazans killed since October 7. Both wars are sustained by extremist perpetrators who wrap their brutality in flags, each side fueling destruction while claiming legitimacy. These conflicts are not isolatedโthey are global shockwaves, reminders that authoritarian power thrives on perpetual violence and distraction.
4. Truth Under Siege. In this climate, truth itself erodes. Facts are not debated but discarded. Entire populations live inside alternative realities, curated by algorithms that prioritize outrage over understanding. Books vanish from schools, journalists are silenced, and propaganda spreads faster than fire. A society that cannot agree on what is real becomes easy prey for those who would weaponize the lie.
The Price of Consciousness Is Responsibility
Conclusion
We are told this instability is temporary, that โnormalโ will return if only we wait. But what if instability is the new normal? What if the illusion of stability is itself the most dangerous lie of all?
History teaches us that empires rarely collapse in a single day. They erode slowly, quietly, until one morning the scaffolding of belief gives wayโand everyone insists they never saw it coming.
The fever is not breaking. The fever is the condition. The question is whether we keep sleepwalking into collapseโor whether we awaken in time to remember what it means to be human: to protect each other, to defend truth, to honor the living earth that sustains us. Collapse is not inevitableโit is accelerated by our apathy, our surrender, our refusal to see. The ground is shifting beneath our feet.
The only real question is whether we will keep drifting with it into ruin, or finally take responsibility for turning toward life.
If this topic intrigues you, I write about these ideas and other in depth in my book Sapience: The Moment Is Now–man’s mythic balance between his gifts and his shadow. Also, check out my new graphic novel: Sapient Survival Guide.
Sapient Survival GuideSapience: The Moment Is Now
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What happens when history is erased, the past is politicized, and the present burns?
The world changed on August 6, 1945โand since that day, every August 5 has become a kind of psychic limbo. A reckoning. The last breath of innocence before the mushroom cloud.
Thatโs how I always feel on this date. Like weโre holding our breath in a forgotten waiting room of historyโblind to what came before, numb to what unfolds now. The silence before the sirens. The moment before the blast.
TodayโAugust 5, 2025โwe are back in that limbo.
But this time, the sky is not split by one bomb.
The destruction is slower, more dispersed, less cinematicโyet no less final.
This time, itโs heatwaves that break records. Rivers that dry to dust, then overflow in torrential floods. Forests that burn unchecked, fueled by massive rains that feed new vegetationโonly for it to dry, then ignite, as heatwaves and droughts return like the ticking hands of a doomsday clock.
It is rights that vanish. Books that disappear. Truth that crumbles like ash.
This time, the bomb isnโt dropped.
Itโs embedded. Woven into the system. And we are its architects.
I. The Myth of the Clean Bomb
The atomic bomb was sold to the American public as a necessary evil. A weapon that saved lives by ending the war. That version of reality still persistsโscrubbed clean of childrenโs shadows burned into concrete, of survivors coughing up blackened blood, of generational trauma encoded in irradiated cells.
The lie of the clean bomb persists because it serves empire. It allows America to remain the hero of its own myth.
And that myth is still being weaponized.
Only now, it’s turned inwardโagainst its own people.
Todayโs warfare is economic, psychological, algorithmic. Yet the logic remains unchanged: justify atrocity with a false binaryโus or them, freedom or chaos, purity or infection.
Todayโs โthemโ are immigrants.
They are scapegoated for the damage inflicted by the billionaire classโthat paltry 3% who not only own the means of production, but also control the distribution of goods, truth, and even hope. Theyโve spent decades engineering a system where they get moreโand everyone else gets less. Less pay. Less power. Less time. Less life.
And now, as the American Empire fractures under the weight of its own excess, the billionaires are panicking.
The moral calculus never changes. Only the delivery system. And the scapegoats who bear the cost of the sins committed by the ultra-richโmen who molest truth as easily as they molest children.
Protected by wealth. Worshipped by media. Shielded by spectacle.
II. The Climate as the New War Zone
While politicians posture and billionaires build bunkers, the planet keeps the receipts.
July 2025 was the hottest month in recorded historyโfor the third year in a row. Massive wildfires are displacing thousands across the Pacific Northwest and Mediterranean. Crops are failing in Africa and Latin America. Major cities are approaching wet-bulb conditions too dangerous for human survival.
But itโs not just weather. Itโs the slow-motion collapse of the world we were promised. A world built on endless growth, fossil-fueled prosperity, and the illusion of safety for the โcivilized.โ That world is burning down, and too many still think we can shop our way out of the flames.
The climate crisis isnโt just about carbon. Itโs about power. Extraction.
It is a system that treats the Earth like a warehouse and people like units of productivity.
It is war by another nameโwaged on the body of the planet and the psyche of the people.
As the temperature rises, so does the campaign to make us forget.
The Project 2025 blueprint isnโt just about rolling back regulations or gutting federal agencies. Itโs about destroying institutional memory. Banning books is not just censorshipโitโs conditioning and control. Erasing queer history, Black history, labor history, climate truthโitโs all part of the same project: obliterate the past so the present can be reprogrammed.
And itโs working.
What happens when a nation forgets not just Hiroshima, but Tulsa? Not just slavery, but Flint? Not just the Dust Bowl, but Paradise, California?
Such a nation becomes unmoored. Untethered. Easily manipulated. Easily distracted by pleasure, products and propaganda.
Memory is not nostalgia. Memory is resistance. When we forget, we become malleable. Controllable. Willing to call cruelty โorder,โ or fire โprogress.โ
IV.What Is Worth Remembering
Today, on August 5, I am remembering not just the blastโbut the silence before it. The illusion that everything was fine.
Thatโs where we are nowโalgorithmically embedded and entombed in illusion. Trained in the art of forgetting. Forgetting that we are space-time beings of staggering magnificenceโsentient sparks capable of perceiving, feeling, and dancing with the mystery of life. One of the rarest awakenings in the known universe. And yet… here we are: sedated by spectacle, indentured to the machine, clocking in for our slow extinction under corporate rule.
It is a myth has never relied on fact. It relies on meaning. And meaning is forged in remembrance.
So let us remember:
That humans made the bombโbut we also made peace.
That fire can destroyโbut it can also purify.
That forgetting is dangerousโbut remembering is defiant.
Let us remember the land before it cracked. The sky before it choked. The soul before it was bought by billionaires and oligarchs.
Let us remember that we are not separate from the story. We are the storytellers.
And right now, the story is breaking.
But so are we.
And maybeโjust maybeโthatโs where the fire of renewal begins… like the mythical firebird.
Call to Action:
๐ This week, remember something real. Tell someone a story about your ancestors. Read a banned book. Visit a site of historical pain and power. Because remembrance is not passive. It is protection. It is protest. It is a portal.
๐Supplement: Echoes of Empire โ From Galactic Collapse to American Decline
In my book Sapience: The Moment Is Now, I trace how empires have risen and fallen across human history in patterns eerily familiar to those imagined by Isaac Asimov in his Foundation series. Asimovโs Galactic Empire, like Rome, like Britain, like America today, collapses not from a single blowโbut from accumulated rot: arrogance, bureaucracy, inequality, and the silencing of truth.
What Asimov understoodโand what history confirmsโis that humans rarely respond to collapse with wisdom. We cling. We deny. We search for scapegoats. We double down on failing systems out of fear of the unknown.
Empires donโt just fall because theyโre conquered. They fall because they forget what they were for. Because the story that once united them becomes hollowโand the people stop believing.
Sapience explores this moment as not just political, but mythological. The American Empire is in decline, and the question is not ifโbut how we respond. Do we fracture into chaos, or awaken into something wiser?
That, as Asimov might say, is the true test of a civilization’s soul.
Foundation โ Official Trailer | Apple TV+
๐Supplement:The Now Scroll
My Now Scroll minis are myth-infused micro-essays or 3-minute soul jolts that confront the collapsing empire in real time. Each one distills a powerful truth at the intersection of myth, psyche, and political reality, using poetic insight and piercing clarity to expose the deep structures of controlโwhether it’s cults, fascism, or the subtle ways we co-create our own enslavement.
They aren’t just commentaryโthey’re living scrolls that remind the reader to stay awake, to question the spectacle, and to reclaim their inner authority in a world designed to numb and domesticate human consciousness. This one is relevant to today’s blog.
๐Supplement:Sapient Survival Guide
Part mythic handbook, part political manifesto, part psychological field guideโthis 62-page survival document is a razor-sharp reckoning with the world as it isโฆ and a rally cry for what it could be.
The Sapient Zombie Survival Guide is not your average prepperโs pamphlet. Itโs a call to those who still feel, still think, still careโthose not yet devoured by the hollow hunger of authoritarianism, consumerism, or despair. It charts the psychic terrain of a country in collapse, exposing how propaganda, greed, and mythic forces have turned millions into the walking dead.
But it doesnโt stop there.
This guide arms readers with 10 survival strategies rooted in ancient wisdom, archetypal truth, and modern resistance. It invites the reader to awakenโnot just politically, but mythicallyโand to ride the dragon of consciousness through a world set ablaze.
With poetic fire, biting satire, and unflinching honesty, this publication lays the foundation for the volumes to comeโThe Houses of Wreckage and The Dragon Ridersโ Guideโoffering not just survival, but transformation.
Part mythic handbook, part political manifesto, part psychological field guideโthis 62-page survival document is a razor-sharp reckoning with the world as it isโฆ and a rally cry for what it could be.
๐Supplement:The Quip Collection’s Firebird Series
The Firebird is a powerful mythic symbolโradiant, untamed, and eternally rising. It evokes transformation, fierce beauty, and soulful renewal. These products capture this important symbol of soulful regeneration and transformation.
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Because good people need a guide when the undead wear suits, wave flags, and drool power
Introductionon How to Survive
How to Survive… In the first weeks of the Trump regime, I called it: The MAGA Zombie Apocalypse. Back then, it felt like satireโa dark metaphor for a rising tide of authoritarian groupthink. But five months into Trump 2.0, the metaphor is no joke–we are living through not only the MAGA Zombie Apocalypse, but the Sadistic MAGA Zombie Apocalypse.
This point was made most powerfully by Noble Prize Winning economist on May 21, 2025: Paul Krugman.
The Last Word | May 21, 2025 with Paul Krugman | What we are talking about is sadistic zombie behavior… these are ideas that should be dead but it keeps shambling along eating people’s brains… (to listen to what I am referring to… click this link and fast-forward to minute 23 of the video)
And Paul Krugman is not the only award-winning economist raising alarm bells on what Trump and his renegade regime is doing to America’s economy and the global economy.
The images above are from Richard Wolff‘s latest video warning of the impending dangers of Trump’s unhinged ideas. This links to his video. Below is his bio.
A lifelong professor of economics, Richard D. Wolff is a well-known critic of contemporary capitalism and the leading proponent of an alternative economic system based on Worker Self-Directed Enterprises (WSDEs). He is the host of Economic Update, and has been interviewed on several popular television programs that include: Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill Moyersโ Moyers & Company, The Charlie Rose Show, and Up with Chris Hayes. As the founding director of Democracy at Work (d@w), Wolffโs publications that advocate for making the workplace democratic include articles in Truthout.org, The Guardian, Common Dreams, as well as his recent book: Capitalism's Crisis Deepens The videos you'll find here also advocate for WSDEs as a key part of moving forward from the current model of capitalism to a new and better economy. For more information, please visit our websites: http://democracyatwork.info http://rdwolff.com
Another award winning economists who is raising Red Alerts on Trump and his MAGA regime is Jeffery Sachs. Both Wolff and Sachs are saying the same thing and that is the USA is an empire in decline. The new rising empire is rising even faster because of Trump and his shenanigans.
Jeffery Sachs Official YouTube Page || There are a lot of Deep Fakes on YouTube since the rise of AI, so I am linking you to his official site. You can explore his discussions and interviews for the topics that interest you most. Sachs is one of the most knowledgable and powerful speakers of Truth at this moment in time.
Who is the new empire?
Why it is China. Why else are political figures (on both the left and right) demonizing China? They need a boogeyman because they don’t know how to fix or stop America’s decline as the dominate super power in the world.
Listen to the experts. I am just the messenger of their insights and warnings of this moment in time.
Zombie Ideas Are the Vectors of the Zombie Plague
But, we are not there any more and no matter how hard Trump and his MAGA zombies wish it to be… America is not going backwards in time (this universe just doesn’t work that way). However, what we do have going on now is a full-scale infection of zombie ideas. Listen to Noble Prize Winning Paul Krugman describe to Larwance what a zombie idea is. In economics, this is an actual term used to describe destructive economic decisions. Paul Krugman doesn’t mince words, nor does he call what Trump and gang are doing populism. He hits much closer to the core of what is happening right now to ordinary, working class Americans. He calls it the work of sadistic zombies.
This isn’t just โauthoritarian drift,โ it is: sadism.
Sadistic MAGA zombies donโt just crave powerโthey relish in cruelty. They cheer at book bans, scream at school boards, and fantasize about revenge. Theyโve been taught to believe that empathy is weakness and democracy is rigged. Theyโve been fed a diet of fear and conspiracy until all thatโs left is a shell of resentment wrapped in a red hat.
And while this madness unfolds in public view, a darker vision loomsโone I explore in my book, Sapience: The Moment Is Now. Itโs a near-future world where the zombie virus of unchecked greed and ignorance has finally run its course. Nation-states collapse under the weight of climate disaster and political rot. Mother Nature strikes back with rage: fire, flood, famine. But the super-elite? Theyโre safe. Sequestered in their billion-dollar Multisโfortresses of luxury, profit, and surveillance. Built on our backs. Funded by our suffering. They donโt just survive the apocalypseโthey monetize it.
How toSurvive the Sadistic MAGA Zombie Apocalypse
So the question remains: how do good people survive this sadistic MAGA zombie apocalypse?
How do we navigate a world where cruelty is a badge of honor, truth is malleable, and the future has been auctioned off to the highest bidder?
Survival is no longer about hiding from the undead. Itโs about refusing to become one.
Survival Guide
1. Donโt Try to Convert the Infected
In Sapience, I explore how mass manipulation hijacks apperceptionโthe brainโs power to weave new experiences with old mental models. MAGA zombies have had their apperception hacked. They see cruelty as strength, lies as truth, and their oppressors as saviors.
You canโt decode a mind thatโs been corrupted by a system that rewards delusion. So stop trying to โwake them up.โ Youโre not dealing with the uninformedโyouโre facing the intentionally misinformed. Conserve your energy. Strengthen your own reality instead.
How to Survive the Sadistic MAGA Zombie Apocalypse is Important: Page from Soon To Be Released Graphic Novel
2. Fortify Your Moral Immune System
In a world unravelingโwhere sea levels rise while civility sinksโwhat protects us isnโt bunkers or bitcoin. Itโs moral clarity. Sapience argues that individual awareness must evolve faster than the systems collapsing around us.
Survival means knowing what you stand for when everything else falls. Read real history. Nourish empathy. Reclaim archetypes of wisdom, guardianship, and creative rebellion. Build an inner compass the zombies canโt corrupt.
How to Survive the Sadistic MAGA Zombie Apocalypse is Important: Fortify Your Moral Immune System
3. Find Your Survivor Tribe
The collapse is not comingโitโs here. As I describe in Sapience, nation-states crumble into irrelevance while the ultra-elite shelter in fortified Multis, profiting from engineered scarcity and division.
Meanwhile, the rest of us must rely on each other. The uninfected. The awake. The aware. Find your people. Your โWisdom Guardians,โ as I call them. Artists, truth-tellers, scientists, street-level organizers, and kitchen-table philosophers. Form pods. Trade skills. Share hope. The future will be rebuilt by tribes of sapients who remember how to feel and think at the same time.
How to Survive the Sadistic MAGA Zombie Apocalypse is Important: Find Your Tribe
4. Use Humor Like a Machete
Zombies donโt laugh. Thatโs your advantage. In Sapience, I argue that imagination isnโt a luxuryโitโs a survival mechanism. Satire, sarcasm, irony: these are weapons against despair and disinformation.
Laugh at absurdity. Call it out. Use your wit to dismantle the systems that want you numb. If authoritarianism is a theater of cruelty, then humor is your standing ovation for sanity.
How to Survive the Sadistic MAGA Zombie Apocalypse is Important: Zombies donโt laugh.
5. Stop Playing Their Zero-Sum Game
The MAGA horde, like the billionaires they worship, believes in scarcity. If they have rights, we lose ours. If they get help, we suffer. In Sapience, I trace this zero-sum thinking back 5,000 yearsโto the roots of empire, hierarchy, and manufactured division.
Survival means refusing to play this game. The future depends on a different modelโabundance through awareness, not extraction. We build systems that care. We dream bigger than the dystopia sold to us.
How to Survive the Sadistic MAGA Zombie Apocalypse is Important Stop Playing Their Zero-Sum Game — National General Strike is our most powerful tool. We have seen this before. If the German people would have mobilized and strikes in 1931-2, they could have ended Hitler before the Holocaust.
This is a future blog, but it describes in detail the use of fear, violence, and corruption in cowing the masses into obedience to the tyranny of Trump & Co. Sapience: The Moment Is Now takes an even deeper dive into how tyrants gain power and control over the masses in the chapters about Ruthless Rulers. I also explore modern man’s long history of being ruled by ruthless men in my Podcast Series: Wisdom Guardians (on YouTube & Spotify)
The sadistic MAGA zombie apocalypse isnโt just metaphor. Itโs psychological warfare, ecological collapse, economic sabotage, and civil decayโall rolled into a carnival of chaos. In Sapience, I call for preparedness not just in supplyโbut in spirit.
Yes, stock the pantry. But also stock your consciousness. Build mental models that help you adapt, imagine, and act. Prep not just for survivalโbut for post-collapse purpose.
How to Survive the Sadistic MAGA Zombie Apocalypse is Important Prepare Like Itโs RealโBecause It Is
What Are We Losing & Where Can We Hide?
Not many Americans can afford to move to another country. However, there might be some places in the US that can weather the coming chaos, economic collapse, tariffs, etc. etc. better than other places.
I asked ChatGPT this question.
And I asked it to factor in the impact of MAGA’s Big Beautiful Bill, Trump’s Big Beautiful Tariffs, and Elon’s Big Beautiful Cuts of the Federal Work Force.
Wait, you say, what exactly do these fired federal employees have to do with my economic wellbeing and security? Will we really miss them? Surely, federal employees weren’t doing anything that affects me?!
This is a massively important question โ because most Americans don’t realize how deeply their everyday lives rely on federal workers and civil service infrastructure, often until itโs too late.
When Elon Musk and Donald Trump โ directly or indirectly โ push policies or appoint people who gutted, defunded, or demoralized the federal workforce, the effects donโt look like chaos at first. They look like delays, breakdowns, confusion, and crises without answers.
These cuts of federal employees are not only being done by Elon’s DOGE teenage team of hackers, but also Trump-era cabinet secretaries who are doing everything they can to hurry up attrition, hollowing out, or outright hostility to entire departments to get them to resign. These efforts combined with Elon Muskโs privatization fantasies and support for anti-government ideology, have real, painful consequences โ especially during a high-stakes summer.
Hereโs a powerful rundown of what Americans will miss, lose access to, or suffer from due to this sustained war on the federal workforce and public service infrastructure:
๐ Weather and Climate Disasters: Youโre on Your Own
Fewer NOAA and National Weather Service meteorologists, leading to delayed or downgraded storm warnings.
Less support from FEMA during floods, wildfires, hurricanes, or tornado recovery โ especially in rural and low-income areas.
Climate data suppression or manipulation, making disaster preparation harder for local governments.
Slower response times to wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and heat waves, which are growing more frequent and intense due to climate change.
Fewer trained staff at FEMA to process aid, rebuild communities, or coordinate rescue operations.
Weather forecasting delays and reduced storm tracking accuracy as NOAA scientists are driven out or not replaced.
Public lands left unguarded during fire season due to cuts to the U.S. Forest Service.
๐ฅต Extreme Heat Protections (OSHA, EPA, HUD)
No federal heat standards enforced for workers in warehouses, fields, and construction โ putting lives at risk.
EPA gutted so fewer checks on urban heat islands, air pollution, and water safety.
Public housing remains unprepared for heatwaves, with no upgrades to AC, insulation, or cooling stations.
โ๏ธ Travel Chaos (TSA, FAA, National Parks)
Fewer TSA workers = longer lines, more delays, and heightened security risks and greater risk of air traffic issues..
FAA staff shortages = more flight delays and greater risk of mid-air incidents.
National parks overwhelmed, under-maintained, and under-patrolled โ risking both safety and ecological damage during peak summer visitation.
Passport and visa delays due to underfunded State Department staffing and backlogs.
Slower response times for air safety violations or airline consumer complaints.
๐ Food Safety Risks
Cuts to USDA inspectors and FDA staffing mean:
Fewer food recalls.
Slower response to contamination.
More tainted food reaching grocery shelves โ especially in meat, dairy, and produce.
๐ง Programs for Kids & Families (USDA, HHS, Education Dept.)
Cut summer lunch programs for low-income kids who rely on school meals.
Delayed child care subsidies and family health services from HHS.
No staff to administer educational grants or summer learning programs โ deepening the gap for marginalized students.
๐ฅ Public Lands and Firefighting
Fewer park rangers, firefighters, and wildland emergency responders.
Reduced protection for forests, wildlife, and endangered ecosystems.
Delays in wildfire prevention programs, increasing the risk of massive summer fires.
๐ฝ Farmer & Food System Support (USDA, EPA, Labor)
Fewer inspections for food safety, pesticides, and agricultural fraud.
No support for small farmers as subsidies and conservation programs go unstaffed.
Farmworker protection enforcement drops, putting vulnerable workers in harmโs way.
๐ฅ Health Access and Medical Oversight
Cuts to CDC staff and public health departments hamper outbreak tracking.
Medicare/Medicaid call centers and case managers are overwhelmed.
Less oversight of toxic workplace exposures (via OSHA or EPA), which rise in summer heat.
๐ท Public Health & Science (CDC, NIH, FDA)
Slower outbreak response and tracking of new COVID, flu, or RSV variants.
Cancer trials delayed, new treatments slowed.
Fewer food and drug inspections, leading to more recalls and risks.
๐ผ Small Business and Economic Aid
Delays or shutdowns in:
SBA (Small Business Administration) loan approvals.
USDA rural development grants.
Housing programs (HUD) and energy assistance.
๐๏ธ Justice & Democracy (DOJ, DOL, USPS, Census Bureau)
Delayed civil rights investigations, police oversight, and workplace discrimination cases.
EEOC, DOJ Civil Rights Division, and labor board staffing gutted.
Slower investigations into:
Police abuse
Discrimination
Corporate exploitation
Undermines voting rights enforcement in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
Labor rights violations ignored due to DOL staff losses.
USPS delays worsen, affecting medication delivery, ballots, and rural access.
Census follow-up workers slashed, hurting planning, school funding, and representation.
๐ป Tech and Infrastructure Cracks
Fewer cybersecurity experts defending federal systems.
Disrepair in federal IT systems, IRS help lines, Social Security portals, and more.
Musk’s influence has led to privatized chaos at agencies like NASA and the FCC โ where public-good missions have taken a backseat to private profiteering.
๐ Digital & Infrastructure Access (FCC, NTIA, DOE, DOT)
Broadband expansion stalls, leaving rural and tribal communities offline.
Clean energy grants delayed or canceled.
Transportation projects halted or badly managed due to DOT understaffing.
๐ต๐ฝ Elder and Disability Services
Social Security Administration understaffed, leading to:
Long wait times for claims.
Missed payments.
Errors with disability benefits and Medicare.
Veterans Affairs delays for medical care and claims processing.
๐ฑ Environmental Protection Gutted
EPA enforcement weakened under both Trump and Musk-aligned deregulation.
Polluters operate with impunity in many regions.
Less testing of water, air, and soil โ disproportionately harming vulnerable communities.
๐ธ Education and Child Protection
Cuts to Head Start, school nutrition programs, and summer youth employment.
Backlogs in child abuse investigations (in coordination with HHS).
Less enforcement of IDEA (special education law) โ hurting children with disabilities.
๐ฏ Bottom Line:
Federal workers are the invisible backbone of a functioning society. When figures like Trump and Musk wage ideological wars against โthe deep state,โ what theyโre really doing is crippling the systems that keep everyday people safe, housed, fed, informed, and protected.
๐จโ๐ฉโ๐งโ๐ฆ In a Nutshell:
Americans will lose rescue, relief, safety, dignity, and time this summer โ not because the government is inherently broken, but because itโs been systematically sabotaged from within. Cuts arenโt just budget line items โ theyโre broken bridges, burning forests, spoiled food, unpaid claims, and unanswered calls when you need help most.
Economic Hardship Map Due to Trump, MAGA, MuskCuts & Tariffs — Knowledge Is Critical in How to Survive
Factoring in impacts of the cuts to Federal Workers, Republicans Big Bad Beautiful Bill, Trump’s Rollercoaster Tariffs, rounding up and deporting immigrants (who are the economic backbone Americans stand upon), among other nonsense and authoritarian tendencies of Trump and his cronies, ChatGPT made this map.
It shows the worst, bad, good, and best states to weather the coming economic weather that promises to be very destructive to everyone living in the USA.
Everyone, except for the billionaires who are counting their billions once again thanks to the Republican Prime Directive to Make the Rich Richer!
And this pain that is coming is not short-term. It is how the billionaires are turning You and me into a permanent fixture of their glorious money machine. Unless we rise in numbers they can’t ignore, we are doomed to a lifetime of repetitive cruelty (dubbed efficiency).
It is efficiency only meant to benefit them! DOGE was the first biteโฆWe the People are the next!
How to Survive the Sadistic MAGA Zombie Apocalypse is Important: Best and Worst Places to Weather the Zombie Apocalypse: Knowing
๐ฅ Conclusion: The Path of the Sapient
We are not merely surviving an election year. Weโre fighting a mind virus. Weโre fighting despair. Weโre fighting a worldview that delights in the suffering of others. But we have what they donโt: compassion, clarity, and creativity.
As we navigate the toxic fallout of this mind virusโengineered by empires like the House of Trump, the House of Koch, and the House of Musk. These modern dynasties feed on chaos, feed on fear, and feast on the unraveling of the common good.
They offer fiery distraction, oily decay, and cosmic delusion, packaged as strength, wealth, and genius. But their apocalypse is not inevitable.
What they lackโand what we fiercely holdโis sapience: the rare, revolutionary capacity to stay human in the face of inhumanity. They burn and extract. We create and rise.
Yes, the MAGA zombie apocalypse is realโan infestation of cruelty, delusion, and decay. But so is the Firebird: that fierce symbol of rebirth rising from ash, wings carved from imagination and resolve.
We are not here to be consumed. We are here to outlast. To outlove. To outthink.
There is no magic savior coming. But maybe thatโs the point.
In a world devoured by cruelty and delusion, choosing to remain fully humanโaware, kind, imaginativeโis the ultimate form of rebellion. In a world designed to dull us into obedience, simply choosing to be awake, compassionate, and creative is an act of defiance.
In Sapience: The Moment Is Now, I argue that itโs time to awaken the archetype of the Sapient Human: one who sees through illusion, transcends despair, and creates meaning even in rubble.
The sadistic MAGA zombies may be loud. They may be real. They may be many. But they are not the future.
This isnโt just resistance. This is transformation.
The sadistic zombies are drooling from their new found power. The dynastic Houses of Economic Power are roaring as the ticker tapes measuring their richness ticks up and up and up.โฆ like one of Elonโs rocket ships! But they are not the future.
And, we have all seen what happens to Elonโs rocket ships to Mars!!!
You are!!
Read Sapience: The Moment Is Now as distraction and psychological armor in mastering How to Survive the Sadistic MAGA Zombie Apocalypse
๐ง ๐งโโ๏ธ Download How to Survive the Sadistic MAGA Zombie Apocalypse — This is YOUR Sapient Zombie Survival Guide
This is your field manual for surviving the coming storm. And stay tuned… the Graphic Novel is comingโarmed with satire, art, and deeper strategies to fight the mind virus and keep your soul intact.
How to Survive the Sadistic MAGA Zombie Apocalypse
A comprehensive guide on How to Survive the Sadistic MAGA Zombie Apocalypse
Companion Guide: Colosseum Of Power (see below). The first graphic novel of this series began as a Codex to the Forces in power tearing our democracy to shreds. I decided to focus on the billionaires first, them move on to the architects (such as Curtis Yarvin) and dismantlers (such as all the Yes men and women in Trump’s cabinet). Together, the billionaires funding the architects and dismantlers create the Codex to the forces ushering in Totalitarianism and Authoritarianism (two opposing and contrary ideals to democracy). If we are to survive as a democratic system, ‘We the People’ need to put checks on mega corporations, tax billionaires, and pass legislation that will never again let a man like Trump near the levers of power ever again. Part of this process means holding all the people who have participated in the dismantling of democracy accountable for their actions: put Pete Hegseth on trial for war crimes, put RFK on trail for letting the measles epic get out of control and closing down cancer research… you get the idea.
Companion Guide to How to Survive the Sadistic MAGA Zombie Apocalypse
First Guide to the Houses of Wreckage destroying our democracy:
The Colosseum of Power is a symbolic portrait of the modern arena where politics, wealth, and media collide. In stark images and visual storytelling, the great Houses of influence circle the spectacle at the center while the foundations of democracy strain beneath them. Part allegory, part political reflection, this compact book invites readers to look beyond the arena lights and see the structure holding it all up.
Blog Summary: Oligarchy, The Fall of Democracy in the U.S. & The Fall of Man Worldwide
This blog explores the perilous trajectory of democracy in the U.S. and humanity’s collective descent into crisis. It begins with Adam Mockler, a pro-democracy YouTuber, who highlights President Biden’s Farewell Address as a wake-up call. Mockler discusses an alarming spike in Google searches for “oligarchy,” revealing widespread ignorance among U.S. citizens, even as a slim majority unknowingly voted for one. He contrasts Russia’s oligarchic emergence and its eventual control by Putin with the U.S. situation, urging viewers not to “obey in advance” but to recognize that corrective actions are still possible.
The blog transitions to economist Richard Wolffโs video Last Warning, where Wolff delivers a sobering analysis of the economic systems driving the U.S. and the world toward collapse. He outlines the rise and fall of empires, focusing on the American Empireโs peak from 1870 to 1970 and its decline since. Wolff paints a grim picture of stagnant wages, skyrocketing debt, and systemic denial, comparing modern Americaโs plight to 1929 Germanyโa desperate population driven to extremism. He warns of the dire consequences of repeating history, particularly the risks of escalating conflict with China, which shows every sign of becoming the next dominant empire.
The blog concludes with insights from the author’s book, Sapience: The Moment Is Now, which delves into the psychological roots of humanityโs denial and inaction. Drawing from chapters on how corruption entered human civilization and led to its downfall, the author provides a framework for readers to build the inner strength needed to confront reality. The message emphasizes the importance of empathy, cooperation, and actionable solutions, rejecting blame and violence as paths that would only hasten humanity’s demise. Together, Mocklerโs contemporary analysis, Wolffโs economic perspective, and the authorโs psychological insights offer a roadmap to facing and addressing the crises at hand.
Adam Mockler Breaks Down What an Oligarchy Is
Adam Mockler’s Transcript
Google Search Skyrocket on What Is an Oligarchy
0:01: All right I want to break down something incredibly important today there's one word that's been skyrocketing in the Google search engine over the past week as Americans across the country try to wrap their heads around its meaning. And I'd like to really do a deep dive on it today. So just to lay the groundwork we all know that Elon Musk is expected to use office space in the White House complex once Trump takes office in a few days. And this isn't because he was elected by anybody. It's because he bought his way in he spent $200 million of his own wealth on Trump's campaign. He rented a headquarters in Pennsylvania so he could go knock doors himself. He also held a giveaway $1 million giveaway for people who voted in red counties. And this was all after he basically blew $44 billion on Twitter as it hemorrhaged money. I guess he didn't blow the money because look where it got him into the White House. Now that also connects with the corporations and billionaires who are bankrolling Trump's inauguration. Some of the richest people in the country have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Donald Trump's Presidential Inaugural Committee. Just listen to this for one second Obama's Inauguration in 2009 was worth $53 million. Trump's inauguration is going to be four times that amount (i.e., $212 million) because people like Jeff Bezos, a founder of Amazon, people like open AI CEO Sam Ultman or Mark Zuckerberg or the Uber CEO or Ken Griffin, who's a hedge fund manager, Elon Musk, they are all donating a massive amount of money to Trump's inauguration fund. And you can probably see where I'm going with this, but I do want to say that rich people meddling with politics has been a thing since the Inception of America.
1:39 It's not always inherently bad people like George Soros have used their money for good. But in this scenario, it's getting quite scary. For example, Bezos the world's second richest man said: "Trump seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation and if I can help him do that I'm going to help him."
Bezo said: "We do have too much regulation in this country," says the world's second richest man.
Their message is clear when Trump takes a presidential oath of office on January 20th. His job is to work for them. This dude (Trump) ran a campaign as a populist who's going to help the American people. Yet he has all of these rich people at his inauguration with $1 million tables. And that's why this article was brought to my attention. Searches for what is an oligarchy Spike after Biden's warning.
2:23 Biden gave his Farewell Address about two days back. And he just straight up said it we are turning into an oligarchy. I'll play the clip in 1 second, but after that we saw a massive spike in the Google search Trends. So this website right here is named Google Trends. It's run by Google and you can see how people search things, what rate they searched at. What is an oligarchy is what I have typed in right here in the interest over time. It spikes from about zero to one or zero to 100 after Biden gave his Farewell Address. You can even see the dark blue states are states where there were extra searches. And we're seeing a lot of searches in red States. So in Indiana you see 89 out of 100 uh in Alabama, 91 out of 100 in Georgia and 86 compared to the interest before [Biden's address] being at about one for a while it was at zero no one was searching for it.
3:12: Then in late December [a little more search activity is shown] and the top related result is down here is Joe Biden. So Joe Biden's Farewell Address directly opened a lot of people's eyes.
What Is an Oligarchy?
So I'd like to dive a little bit deeper into what an oligarchy is. I know I've talked about a lot on the show. I've drawn parallels to Russian oligarchs and the way that people entrench their power with wealth, but I'm not sure if I've ever done a full video laying out the definition, and then building on top of that to show everyone the situation that we're in.
So make sure you drop a like [and] subscribe [and] watch this video till the end, and if you're going to share any video with your family or your Maga family members, it's probably should probably be this one.
3:45: I'm not even going to be talking about Trump as much in this video it's just about the broad state of American politics.
So what is an oligarchy?
Well, Britanica says "Oligarchy governmentby the few, especially despotic power exercised by a small and priv group for corrupt or selfish purposes. Oligarchies in which members of the ruling group are wealthy or exercise their power through their wealth are known as plutocracies."
4:10: So, you could also say that we're slowly turning into a plutocracy but oligarchy is a term that Britanica and use so we'll just keep digging in on that. There's also this article that talks about how Putin conquered Russia's oligarchy. They used to be run purely by an oligarchy but Vladimir Putin said to the rich people either you're loyal to me or you go to prison.
4:30: Isn't that basically what Trump said about Mark Zuckerberg? I mean Mark Zuckerberg very clearly began going along with what Trump was saying after Trump said: "He may put him in prison." Trump was even asked "Do you think it's because of your threats against Zukerberg that he's now a Republican?" Trump said: "Yeah, probably."
4:44: So let me read this really quickly: "In the summer of 2000-21, [some] of the richest men in Russia exited their bulletproof limousines and entered the Kremlin for a historic meeting. In the previous decade, these men had risen seemingly out of nowhere amassing spectacular fortunes as a country around them descended into chaos through Shady deals, outright corruption, and even murder. These rapaciousoligarchs, as Russians have come to derisively call them, had seized control of much of Russia's economy and increasingly its fledgling democracy. But now their nation's newly elected President Vladimir Putin wanted to tell them face-to-face who was really in charge."
5:20: Quote, I want to draw your attention to the fact that you built the state yourself to a great degree through the political or semi-political structures under your control. So there is no point in blaming the reflection in the mirror. Putin offered the oligarchs a deal: Bend to my authority stay out of my way and you can keep your Mansions, super yachts, and private jets and multi-billion dollar corporations. Corporations that just a few years before had been owned by the Russian government.
5:48: In the coming years the oligarchs who reneged on this deal and undermined Putin would be thrown into a Siberian prison or be forced into Exile or die in suspicious circumstances.
6:00: Now, this is obviously an extreme example. The US is not Russia and people who are saying that we are already Russiaare sort of just obeying in advance. A lot of my commenters are like: "Oh Adam... it's so cute of you to think that we're ever going to have another election again. That is a form of obeying in advance just admitting that that we're never going to have an election before Trump even takes office means in a way you are obeying in advance, and you're just giving up. You're being that cynical!
6:19: We need to keep fighting. We are not Russia, and I know people in the comments are going to be like: Adam, we basically are Russia. We're not we're not Russia yet. Trust me.
6:27: These individuals have enriched themselves at the expense of the Russian people. The White House said in a recent statement announcing sanctions against over a dozen oligarchs connected to Putin, quote: "They sit a top Russia's largest companies and are responsible [for] providing the resources necessary to support Putin's invasion of Ukraine. So, [in] the so in Russia's case, we can safely say that oligarchs are a small group of unelected individuals who have concentrated their power by wielding their disproportionate amount of wealth, and they use their wealth to entrench their power within politics outside of the formal election systems.
Elon Musk & Office Space in Trump’s White House
7:02: Can I just go back to this article Elon Musk is expected to use office space in the White House complex. The richest man in the world has bought his way into the White House, and now he gets an office space not because he was elected, he wasn't even born in America. He was not elected by anybody. The location suggests that Mr Musk, who owns companies with billions of dollars in contracts with the federal government, will continue to have remarkable access to president-elect Donald J Trump.
7:28: Can I just go back to what what Bezos said. Quote: "He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation and if I can help him do that, I'm going to help him. We do have too much regulation in this country."7:37: This is the second richest man in the world saying: "Hey, this regulation is making it... uh, really hard for me to get rich and exploit my workers."
7:46: Bro -- you're already rich what type of regulations do you want to remove other than things that will just hurt American citizens?
7:54: So let's watch this video of President Biden during his Farewell Address, now that I've laid out the groundwork. Now I can play this video of president Biden, and we can all be on the same page. I know that you guys know what an oligarchy is but there is something to be said that most Americans had to search this after Biden's farewell address and that this spiked.
8:09: So let's listen to this that's why my Farewell Address tonight I want to warn the country of some things that give me
great
Back to President’s Biden’s Warning to All Americans — Red, White, Blue, Brown, Green
8:13: "I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern this is a dangerous con and that's a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra wealthy people. The dangerous consequences [is] if their Abuse of Power is left unchecked today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights, and freedoms. [It also threatens] a fair shot for everyone to get ahead. We see the consequences all across America, and we've seen it before more than a century ago. But the American people stood up to the Robert Barons back then and busted the trusts. They didn't punish the wealthy. [They] just made the wealthy pay the by play by the rules everybody else had to just play by the rules that everybody else has to play by. "
9:11: And let me remind you guys, President Biden is very careful with his words. If I have one criticism of his presidency, [it] is that he was probably too risk averse at certain points. There were certain times when he didn't want to rock the boat regarding Russia or he didn't have the strength needed on the international stage to keep Russia in check, and I think Biden had a great domestic presidency.
9:30: I mean I think he passed some historic legislation. He is a great human being, but the least I can say is I think there are certain moments where he he he was a little bit too risk averse. And that showed on the world stage but right here, he is being very careful with his words. He would not say the US is turning into an oligarchy if he didn't mean it. He's not just Trump. Trump will bloviate and he'll throw out any word whenever it suits his interest.
9:54:Trump will literally say anything to anybody. Biden is not like that. Biden is very careful with what he says [and] does because he understands that what he does sends a message.
10:06: So let's finish off with this article President Joe Biden in his farewell address to the nation on Wednesday warned that American democracy is being threatened by a burgeoning oligarchy. Oligarchs are a subset of the very very wealthy and this is an important distinction right here. Being rich doesn't necessarily make you an oligarch.
The 1% Is What Oligarchs Are… and Even a Subset of That Super Elite Group
10:19: "An oligarch is someone who influences politics outside of the formal system," explained by Brooke Harrington who studies this exact thing at Dartmouth University. She spoke with the five-minute fix in 2022 when US sanctions were targeting Russian oligarchs at the outset of the war in Ukraine. Quote: "It's someone who isn't an elected representative or Cabinet member but who has the ear of the president." And she said this before Elon Musk was really Maga. I mean in 2022 Elon Musk had bought Twitter, but he wasn't like full onon full-throated Maga yet.
10:50 She then pointed to the late Sheldon Adon a billionaire Casino Tycoon and Republican Mega donor who did work on US Israeli relations and now Sheldon's wife Miriam is one of Trump's biggest donors and even got the presidential medal of freedom after Trump's first term... that is an example of an American oligarch. Elon Musk almost certainly fits the definition today. No matter where the definition is coming from, whether you're getting it from Marian Webster or even Wikipedia, it doesn't matter Elon Musk almost certainly fits the definition.
11:23: The tech billionaire has taken calls with foreign leaders. He stopped a government spending Bill in its tracks by sending out a few tweets or X's or whatever the hell [that thing is now], and [he] seemingly hasn't left president-elect Donald Trump's side since the end of the campaign. He's an unofficial leader in the Republican party. Some Democrats have derisively called him Pro co-president but he is he is literally the co-president, and this is an oligarchy in every sense of the term.
11:45: Why Trump tends to attract oligarchs this part is important. Harrington argues there have always been American oligarchs like I said at the beginning of the video, rich people have always been putting their thumb on the scale most of the time. We don't want that we can have a separate conversation about money and politics in general, but what we're seeing is new. This is a different scale from George Soros donating to Obama's campaign in 2008. This is different and I also will say I think Trump will change what the presidency in America means or what it looks like. I genuinely think that in 20 years, being president will mean something completely different.
12:19: After Trump's term in 2028 the presidency will not mean the same as what it means in 2024. I can make another video about that but Trump has a lot to do with it and a lot to do with why the oligarchy is growing. Many in the business community view him as a purely transactional president. He's a very transactional person and that you get what you give, and so oligarchs and potential oligarchs are growing in influence [abd] in number.
12:44: And as he prepares again to take [and has taken] office, several Tech Titans are making an almost dizzying amount of business moves that could be easily perceived as being for Trump. [For example] META, Mark Zuckerberg, [is] ending factchecking on a social media platforms and removing tampons from certain bathrooms... undoing things about pronouns. I mean it's all just posturing, right?
13:01: Jeff Bezos who founded Amazon and owns the Washington Post, spiked a comma Harris endorsement from the post editorial board. The Tik Tok CEO will be [and was] at Trump's inauguration on Monday, a day after the platform is expected to be banned. Actually, they'll all be at Trump's inauguration including the heads of Google, the head of Apple they've all donated millions of dollars to Trump's inauguration because, quote: "We're witnessing Tech CEOs scrambling [to] curry favor, and the Trump Administration has not not even begun," said Maximillian Potter a journalist with the group protect democracy.
13:34: Trump also appears to be integrating his wealthy allies into the government not unlike his first term where many of his cabinet members were millionaires or billionaires. Musk, the richest man in the world, and millionaire biotech entrepreneur V Ramaswami will lead an initiative tasked with cutting government spending and waste with republicans in Congress following their lead [Ramaswami actually quit from DOGE and is running for mayor or governor of someplace now].
13:55: And here's what I was saying earlier and I want to make an entire other video about this, but an oligarchy can be hard to stop once it's in motion. I genuinely think that after this Trump term, the office of the presidency will mean something different. It has long been the case that big money controls politicians, as I said, but Musk and other billionaires growing influence on the system could be a product, a direct result of Americans dissatisfaction with how responsive or the lack of responsiveness from the government over the past few years.
14:23: Trump and the billionaires with whom he's aligned himself are seen among his supporters as Outsiders who will disrupt the status quo in Washington. Whether we like it or not quote: "Democrats have become associated with the elite with political correctness. There are times when Democrats are a little bit too finger Waggy--no don't do that don't do that..." uh explaining that the party came across during the campaign [and] is more interested in the causes of higher educated, uh urban communities than the rest of America. I don't know if I agree exactly with that perception, but yes, people did think Trump was for them due to a multitude of reasons.
14:55: Russia is the poster country for oligarchs. There oligarchs are fully embedded in politics. They are directing culture, serving in high-profile governmental jobs... [and] can I just go back to this article one more time, this dude [Musk] is going to have an office in the White House, in the White House.
15:11: Quote: "There are no laws against a president in a super wealthy cabinet using their power to benefit their own class. There is nothing that compels them to look beyond their privilege to address the needs of the citizenry. In other words it's going to be up to voters to hold leaders accountable for putting the rich first. And in order to show voters that their interests are being put second, we're going to have to push back relentlessly. We're going to have to dominate The Narrative and that's where you and I come in every single day we're going to be pushing back on this channel.
15:36: So I'll end off with that drop a like subscribe. I love you guys. I'll see you in the next one and peace out!
Richard Wolff’s Last WARNING
“Most People Have No Idea What’s About To Happen” | Richard Wolff Last WARNING โ ๏ธ | DENIAL
Richard D. Wolff is an American economist and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is known for his critiques of economic inequality and his advocacy for worker cooperatives as a way to empower individuals and address systemic issues within the economy. Through his books, lectures, and public appearances, Wolff explores topics such as economic democracy and alternative economic models.
Richard Wolff’s Transcript
A System in Very Deep Doodoo
0:00 Before I start I have to ask you to understand that old adage that if you don't like the message, please don't take your anger out on the messenger. I am going to be describing to you as best I can what the situation is with the United States's economic system, which has a name... it's called capitalism, and it is to give you a hint of where we're going. It is a system in very deep doodoo.0:30 It is in the greatest difficulty that I have ever seen in my life. And you can tell from my white hair that I've been around a while. I never expected to see what I am experiencing and I imagine for many of you, it is the same unless you are committed to something my psychotherapist wife explains to me as the problem of denial. Not a river in Egypt but an inability to confront what it is that's going on because it's frightening. It's a very human thing to do. It's like a little child who puts his or her hands in front of her face when there's a scary dog in the neighborhood because she still imagines at age three... that if you don't see it it isn't there. And if you don't see what's going on around us then perhaps it isn't there.
1:20And that is something which our political leaders and our cultural leaders and our economic leaders that's one thing they all have in in common with very few exceptions namely a commitment to denial.
Why Is the American System in Very Deep Doodoo? Because of Denial
1:41 So my presentation today is going to try to break through all the mechanisms of denial that surround us in order to tell you what I think is going on. I'm not infallible. I make mistakes like everybody else but this is the fruit of a lifetime of observing US capitalism, which I was born in the United States in Young, Ohio. I've lived and worked here all my life. I have never seen anything like the situation we are in now.
2:12 To give you the framework and then jump in [to my observations], I think that the history of the world is a sequence with interruptions, but a sequence of Empires: the Greek, the Roman, the Persian, the Egyptian, the Chinese. I mean I could go on, and they all have something in common they are born usually out of the demise of another Empire. They evolve and change over a period of time running from a few decades to a few centuries, and then they die. They pass away.
Empires Fall — They Live & They Die
Empires fall — they live & die
2:36 The most recent one perhaps the most and best studied was the British Empire, which depending on how you want to count goes from around the 16th century to the end of the 19th... more or less so three or four centuries.
2:56 Depending on how you come and out of the disintegration of the British Empire, literally punctuated by the war the independence war that swirled around Boston right where you are, a part of that Empire broke away. And in an important lesson, the Empire denied that this was building, even though it was building across the entirety of the 18th century. [The British Empire] denied it, and then in 1776 the denial blew up in its face as the colonists here in this part of the British Empire, by the way a relatively small relatively unimportant part of the Empire, wanted its independence.
3:37 And a war was fought, which to the surprise and nd a war was fought, which to the surprise and chagrin of the British Empire and George III sitting on his throne in England, the British lost. Not to be forgetful, let me remind you that in 1812 they tried again,and they lost again.
3:56 And with that set in motion the disintegration of the British Empire, which ended in World War I [as well as the Ottoman Empire].
4:02 Out of it emerged the American Empire.
4:09 American capitalism across the 19th century resolved certain key internal contradictions holding them back most notably the bizarre coexistence in this country of a capitalist Northeast and Midwest and a slave South that was resolved by the willful destruction of slavery by the capitalists.
4:29 Remember the Civil War is the expropriation without compensation of the single most important wealth of the south in this country the slave.
4:41 The slave was emancipated, and thereby the White Master impoverished. The very Stark disregard for the sanctity of private property and capitalism having destroyed its competitor with enormous violence took off.
5:04 Starting in 1870, the United State's capitalism had a century of economic growth the most amazing thing is if you look at the statistics, crude as they are especially in the early years, the United States grew uninterruptedly for that Century.
5:19 Roughly 1870s to the 1970s, every decade real wages of workers were high higher than the decade before. Even across the Great Depression, profits grew even faster.
5:37 So you had this bizarre situation, quite rare in the world of a capitalism that was able to give Rising profits to its capitalists and Rising wages to the mass of its workers with of course the exception of those workers with the bad luck to not have been born white.
6:00 Very important [to let] that they sink in [a] while. Why? Because if you do something like this, if you have a century of economic growth under an economic system like capitalism, it isn't So surprising that you think of the United States as exceptional... because in that regard it was. If you're religious, perhaps you think God likes Americans better than he or she likes other people. If you're not religious, you will attribute it to who knows what... entrepreneurship. My professors used to like to say, "Whatever in the world that's supposed to be?"
6:33 But it was exceptional, and Americans, whatever there other orientations, took on the notion that we live in an exceptional place.
6:46 And they then really ran with that ball, and [they] began to imagine that this exceptionality was somehow inherent. And so, it would last forever. It was upward and onward... the American economy! And it would carry our culture around the world to become the world's culture.
The American Economy, Onward & Upward Forever & Ever… OH NO!! Help!!!
7:05 Our political system would be the model. Our military would push away those backward people who wanted to resist. It became, and I use this word carefully, crazy.
7:26 And of course when the signs began to emerge that this Empire, the United States Empire, after a 100 Year rise up, was beginning to show the signs of decline, of peaking, of breaking... it's not surprising that the leaders of such a system with such a history would be deep into denying what had happened.
7:52 Not seeing what was exploding around them over the last few days, Americans have been confronted yet again with the level of violence committed every day somewhere in this country by the police against the Citizens.
8:13 And again there are people who want to blame it on this or that particular policeman or woman who will not see that this is a social phenomena.
8:26 It has been going on for a long time and it is getting worse. This the same issue. It's the same denial.
8:34 Okay... what exactly is being denied? Let's begin, and I apologize I'm going to begin with economics, but that is what I know best.
8:41 That is what I have studied all my life. And so if I'm going to be useful to you, I want to share at first what I know best.
8:58 Over the last 40 years, roughly 1980 to now, we have seen (and all economists of all political persuasions understand this and see it).
9:03 We all use basically the same numbers, and with a few exceptions of course, always we come to the same conclusion over the last 40 years: There has been a radical redistribution of wealth from the bottom and the middle to the top.
9:23 And the more top you get [the better]... the top 10% have done really well, the top 5% even better, the top 1% even better than that, and the top one tenth of 1% the best of all!
9:37 And you know them because in our society we adulate them. I'm talking about Bill Gates or Elon Musk or Warren Buffett or fill-in the blank. You know them! Our culture [cult-ure] makes sure you know them!!
As the Rich Get Richer… and the Rise of Wage Slaves
AS THE RICH GET RICHER… UNDER RIGGED TAX CODES THAT BENEFIT CORPORATIONS & THE RICH… THE POOR GET POORER & THE MIDDLE CLASS DISAPPEARS
9:49 They became much richer. The top 10% became [even] richer. All across those 40 years. This was partly because... and this is very important that you understand this.... it was partly because we changed the tax laws in this country.
10:08We relieved taxes from corporations and the rich, and we switched them [taxes] onto the middle and bottom.
10:14It was done by Republicans. It was done by Democrats. It didn't matter who was in The White House or who was controlling the houses of the Congress.
10:25The Democrats did it a little less quickly. The Republicans were a bit more intense.
10:33Speed varied... content did not. Even more important than the changes in taxes was the phenomenon of the relationship between capital and labor--that is corporations and business on the one hand and the mass of people, employees, on the other.
10:52 As I've told you, real wages went up for a century--1870s to 1970.
10:58Why 1970, do I pick that? Now I can tell you because that's when real wages in America stopped rising!
11:06Absolutely epic making change!!What is a real wage? It's the amount of money you get adjusted for the prices you pay. So for example, if your wages go up 10%, you might feel good, but if all the prices you have to pay went up by 10%... you're no better off with a 10% bigger money wage than you were without it because the prices have adjusted.
11:32 We all know that in economics, so we don't use money wages, we use what's called real wages. Wages understood in terms of what it can afford you to buy: Goods, services, food, clothing, shelter, entertainment, education, medical care... whatever.
Americans have not made a real wage… a living wage… since 1978
11:43 Real wages rose. In other words, the money wages workers had from 1870 to 1970 rose more than the prices did. So they really got more stuff that they could afford to buy.
Trapped in the Illusion of Never-Ending Capitalistic Growth
Americans are trapped in an illusion of never-ending growth, which capitalism did from the 1870s to 1970s… but then it stopped
12:04 In the 1970s, that stopped and it has never resumed. The American working class today earns, in terms of what it can afford to buy, the average American worker earns now what he or she did in 1978.
Americans today receive the same real wage, a living wage, that they did in 1978
12:25Try to wrap your head around no more real wage increase. For a country that had enjoyed steady real wage rises for a century, this is a traumatic event.
Back to Denial
12:33 How is it handled in the United States?
12:36 Denial.
How has this been handled in the US?
Denial
12:39 I won't embarrass you by asking how many of you know what I just said, to be the case. How many of you have dwelt in your mind on what it might do to a population used to a rising wage when it is no longer available.
12:52 There was no discussion at the time or since. No debate in this country... what do we do about all of this?!
13:05 The closest you got were vague gestures in which somebody says: "Gee the middle class seems to be fading away..." as if this were I don't know some sort of cosmic effect or maybe the result of sunspots or allergies or who knows what.
13:24 But an analysis either of why it happened or of what its consequences were No, no, no... nothing serious.
No analysts of why this happened or the consequences of it has ever been done.
US Women Sent into the Workforce, Enmasse, Due to Denial
13:29 Well let me tell you what some of the results were.
13:35Number one, [and] by far the most important socially, the women of the United States left the home, where they had been sequestered for the earlier parts of American history and had to go out and do wage labor on mass.
13:48 The only ones who had been doing that beforehand were black and brown women. They long been doing it cuz they had to and the poorest among the whites.
13:55 But now suddenly, all women, all the wives and mothers had to go out. There was no other way to sustain the fantasy of growth of the American dream of what had been experienced in the previous Century.
14:13The second most important effect Americans began to realize that the only way they could participate in further growth of consumption, the way they had been led to believewas somehow inherent in the American Experience besides sending their wives out to work, besides following a career as a worker in a factory you could now go back to work and be a greeter at Walmart's but beside that--you could borrow money.
14:50 In the 1970s, the banks of the United States decided that the consumer... to whom they had never lent money before... they would now lend money to.
15:03 In other words, the credit card, which until then had been
American Express in the hands of rich people and businessmen, would now become socialized.
15:08 Everybody's wallet would be crammed full of plastic cards... live off them.
15:15 And so, the American working class from around the 1970 to the present accumulated debt. We are a debt ridden society in the way we never were before.
America is a Debt Ridden Society
Pioneers of Debt, Depression, and Denial
15:28 We became Pioneers not in covered wagons going west, but in what we could cram plastic in our wallets. All the growth of consumption in the last 40 years has been based on women's labor women's earnings and debt.
15:46 Families have become much more complicated institutions. To survive we have the highest divorce rate in the world. We put our families under levels of pressure that would be impossible for anyone to sustain.
15:56American women consume more psychotropic drugs than any other population on the planet!
American women consume more psychotropic drugs than any other population on the planet… Why?
16:02Why? Because they are druggies?
16:08 No! Because we put them under impossible pressures, which blew up the family, since the mother was what held the emotional life of so many families together, and she was now as exhausted as the husband.
16:20 Coming back from her hours of work, the Empire's Foundation is beginning to crack.16:27 Well, you keep assuming more debt, which the American working class did.
16:33 It borrowed. It had borrowed with government support for its house. That's how mortgages developed.
16:39 For those of you who don't know, mortgages were never given to working class people to buy a home until the Great Depression.
The Great Depression & Greedy Corporations
Mortgages were never given to working class people to buy a home until the Great Depression.
16:46 To get us out of the Great Depression, the government took the step of guaranteeing the mortgages so the banks could lend without a risk.
16:53 Otherwise they wouldn't have. Cuz they never did. The American homeowner Society is a product of the government not of private Enterprise, which was too greedy and too frightened to ever do it.
Private Enterprise was too greedy & too frightened to make loans to ordinary American citizens, so the government did it.
17:05 Home loaning, then the car had to be paid for with loans because the working class couldn't afford it.
17:12 Then the credit card, so you could buy everything!
Why the US Government Had to Step In
Government helped banks prop up the people with home mortgages, car loans, and then the credit card.
17:17 And then in the last 20 years, a new indebtedness, the college student.
17:23 So by now, the family is dying, floating in levels of debt it cannot support because the underlying wage didn't go up... just the debts.
17:31 And it doesn't take a PhD in economics, although I have that, for you to understand that if the underlying wage doesn't go up... you can't keep accumulating debt because the time will come... and it's called 2008... and that's why that song is so appropriate: Cracks in the Empire!
It doesn’t take a PhD to understand that if a person keeps accumulating debt that the time will come when the debt bubble bursts.
That Bubble Bursting is call 2008
Side Trip
I’m not sure which song Wolff is referring to… I am interested which one… but I found these two.
Colin Dodds – Debit Credit Theory (Accounting Rap Song
Cracks in the Empire — Diamond Dan
Back to Richard Wolff
Cracks in the Empire
17:42Cracks... In... The... Empire... this system is so committed to inequality that not only did it grow over the last 40 years as wages stopped rising... of course, where would would workers income go they couldn't grow their wages were flat but they were becoming more productive all the time.
18:00 The last 40 years are the computer, the robot, artificial intelligence... all of that workers productivity goes up [but] workers wages are flat.
18:13Wages are what the employer gives you.Productivity is what you give the employer.18:19 If what the employer gives you is flat and what you give the employer keeps rising... guess what you have:inequality.
Flat Wages = Inequality
If what the employer gives you is flat & what you give the employer keeps rising… guess what you have?Inequality.
18:25 You're taking all your growing out put and giving it to one small class of people employers are 1 2 3% of our population, if that.
Employers are 1, 2, 3% of our population, if that… but they get all the wealth.
18:38 They get it even across Covid-19 pandemic.
Employers benefit from rising productivity even across COVID-19.
18:38 Inequality got worse. And what did we do to the working class after we gave them 40 years of losing everything... their families falling apart, their position in American society, their growing wealth (a kind of affirmation that somehow you're doing better) [but] all of that's taken away.
19:04 Then we hit them with COVID, then we hit them with an inflation and now we're hitting them with rising interest rates.
After 40 Years of Losing Everything…. the Middle Class Is…
40 years of losing everything… their families falling apart, their position in American society, their wealth… then we hit them with COVID, inflation & rising interest rates.
19:10 Let me frighten you, if I may... if what I've said hasn't done that job already.
19:16 There is an example in history of another working class over a small number of years being hit with economic blows on a scale of what's Happening Here.
19:21The example is Germany, and here's how it works in the second half of the 19th century as the British British Empire is declining the United States is not the only competitor looking to replace the British... there is another one, Germany.
Here’s How Another Highly Productive Middle Class/Working Class Society Handled Losing Everything
There is an example in history of another working class over a small number of years being hit with economic blows on a scale of what’s Happening Here… Now… in America.
That example is Germany
19:40World War Idefeats Germany. Britain with its allies defeat Germany... throw them out of the competition, wipe them out, impose at the end a reparations they couldn't possibly pay.
19:51 The German working class, which had been built up across the 19th century to believe it was creating a whole new globe. In German it's called Das Deutsche Reich.
Throughout the 19th Century, Germans were made to believe they were buildingDas Deutsche Reich.
20:03 That's like the German Empire, and it had... you know, territories in Asia, territories in Africa, and so on. All that was smashed when the unthinkable happened in 1914 to 1918.
20:19Germany was defeated. The empire was taken away. Literally, the British took the colonies in Africa away from the Germans and made them British colonies.
20:27 Everything for them [Germans] destroyed. It was a trauma for the German working class.
20:33 It ended in 1918 with defeat. Within four years late 22 to early 1923, literally a century ago, Germany then experienced the worst inflation in modern times anywherein the West.
20:48 In a period of 9 months, the German currency went from six Deutsche Marks to the dollar to 4 trillion Deutsche Marks to the dollar.
In a period of 9 months, the Deutsche Mark went from 6 Marks to the Dollar…
…to 4 Trillion Deutsche Marks to the Dollar
21:01 Prices doubled over weeks at a time, every hour of the day, any savings accumulated by a German family, and they were very frugal, were wiped out.
21:13 [During this time, after] six generations of saving money, [they] had enough money put away to buy a quarter pound of butter. They were done.
21:19 And five years after that, in 1929, the Great Depression hit Germany. It was too much. You cannot hit a working class, even the German working class, which was the best educated, most productive and, most progressive working class anywhere in Europe.
21:38 No contest. Even that... it was too much. And in 1932, those German people overwhelmed by what they had been put through, turned around and supported a little Austrian with a black mustache Adolf Hitler...and you know the rest of the story...
It was too much. And in 1932, those German people overwhelmed by what they had been put through, turned around and supported a little Austrian with a black mustache.
Here We Go Again… This Time in America
21:56 We're just living out... here we go... the same sad scenario: denial, not explaining to people the foundation of what they're assuming, not talking honestly about its disappearance, the cracks what it means when your Empire has that fun ride up... [then] begins to be replaced by the much less fun ride down. We're in very deep trouble,
Here we go… the much less fun ride down… in denial all the way!
22:27 The last half century, we have benefited enormously by the fact that there's one international currency money: It's the US dollar.
22:35 It's as good as gold because it literally functions like gold.
22:41 That's over. Ukraine simply speeds up the process. China, Russia, now Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, and many more countries are signing up for another International currency.
22:56 It shouldn't come as a big surprise whose currency that is... it's the currency of the People's Republic of China.
23:10 China shows all the signs of a rising Empire, matching all the signs of a declining Empire here.
The Day of the US Dollar Ruling Are Over
The days that the US dollar rules the international currency is over.
23:18 You may not like that information. You may be upset by it... that's your business. But to pretend it isn't there... let me give you just some numbers...
23:30 I'm an economist we do that. One of the things we do as economists is we look at the size of an economy to gauge relative economic power. And the number we use it's crude, like all numbers, but it gives you an idea it's called GDP. It stands for gross domestic product.
23:49 It's a measure of the output of goods and services in one calendar year.
23:54 So it helps us if we look at it and we measure it. And it's measured for every country on this Planet. It gives us an idea of the relative size.
GDP
GDP is how economic power is measured worldwide.
24:00 Okay... let's now do a comparison of three countries Russia, China, and the US to get a sense of their economic wealth their economic power.
24:13 Their economic footprint, if you like, in the world to give you an idea of... and if you didn't know this, think about what that might mean. So I'll start with Russia.
24:26 The GDP of the most recent year for Russia it's about 1.5 trillion dollars. The GDP of the United States last year was $21 trillion dollars.
24:49 Do you understand Russia has never been and is not now anything like a serious economic competitor of the United States. It never was. It never came close.
24:54 It may have had some nuclear weapons to worry about. It may have had political influence but like an economic unit?
24:59 Only people [who] systematically denied the simple statistic I just gave you could believe that
25:09 Russia has $1.5 trillion GDP. The United States alone [has] 21 [trillion GDP]
25:13 You know who has a bigger economic footprint than Russia? Italy
25:18 United States is allied with Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and, many other countries against Russia.
25:25 If you put them all together, it's like 30 maybe 35 trillion dollar against Russia with one and a half... what are you talking about a war? 25:37 This is a war between David and Goliath, and you're not going to be happy with who is playing which role. Think about it.
Russia GDP $1.5 trillion dollars
US GDP $21 trillion dollars
25:47 Now China... what's the GDP of China? Ready -- $17.5 trillion.
China GDP is $17.5 trillion dollars
25:47 $175 trillion... that's a competitor, not Russia.
25:53 China that's the Empire emerging, not Russia. China.
25:59 And why? Easy to explain. Over the last 25 or 30 years annual growth of GDP, how fast is the economy growing. Here in the United States is 2% maybe, slightly more 2.5 to 3%, somewhere in there. Let's be generous 2 to 3% US average annual growth.
26:19 China's average annual growth is 6 to 9%. End of conversation.
26:27 That's why China went from being one of the poorest countries in the world to being the competitor of the United States, one of
the richest.
26:32 You know what it's like? It's a story a little like the colony in North America being a place for Furs, and then becoming the new Empire
26:44 So that the roles between Great Britain and its Colony were reversed.
26:49 Now Britain is our Colony, as any honest appraisal of the relationship between these two countries would immediately acknowledge.
26:57 In Britain, one of the most common jokes you can hear is that when the United States tells Britain to jump, the response of Britain is: How high?
In Britain, one of the most common jokes you can hear is that when the United States tells Britain to jump, the response of Britain is: How high?
27:05 China has overtaken the United States in dozens of fields, particularly the highest Tech ones.
27:17 Young people around you are using TikTok... that's Chinese, as a social media. What's going on?
27:23 The United States doesn't know what to do. Having not learned the lessons, having not understood what denial means... for a long time they denied because to see the rise of China is to take a step in the direction that might make you confront what's happening to you and that's a taboo.27:42Finally, the United States figures it out and what does it do as if it learned nothing from its history. It tries Warfare.
How the US Deals with the Fact that Its Capitalistic Systems Are Declining & China is Rising
The signs of denial are all around…
27:55 It tries to slow down, to stop, maybe even to reverse history... just like Britain did. Mr Trump declared a
28:03 Mr Trump declared a trade war against China. You remember... it's not that many years ago he applied sanctions, he applied tariffs, he did everything he could to stop to reverse it.
28:14 None of it worked. It was one big fat failure.
Big Fat Orange Failure… and that Was 4 Years Ago!
None of what Trump did worked 4 years ago… It was one big fat failure.
28:23 Now, we are in a war, we the US and its allies, with the most important ally China had, Russia.
28:29That's what's going on in Ukraine. It has got nothing whatever to do with that sad country suffering this war. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
28:42 The truth of Ukraine, all the rest is propagandistic Foolery on both sides.
28:49This is about weakening the Ally of China,which Russia is.
The Truth About Ukraine from an Economic Perspective
28:55 When the war started, Mr. Biden predicted the Russians couldn't last a few weeks
29:01 With this Armada of countries and weapons and wealth, and new name it, he referred to what they were doing as the Mother of All Sanctions, which it was greatest sanction program ever apply, [that] Russia wouldn't last.
29:15 The ruble would be valueless within weeks.
29:24All of that 100% wrong. The Russian economy bubbling along pretty well took a dip right after came back most of the way.
29:30 You know why? Because the sanctions mainly stop buying.
Russia is an exporter of oil & gas… when the West stopped buying China, India, and Suadi Arabia bought more…
29:35 Oil and gas, which is Russia's Lifeline, that's what Russia is an exporter of oil and gas. I'm exaggerating but it's the basic story.
29:42 [While] Europe said we wouldn't buy it anymore, and that would have crippled Russia, except Russia found other buyers.
29:48 It's not a complicated story. China bought more. India bought tons more. Saudi Arabia is reorganizing its economy. Pakistan is making important agreements with the Chines
30:00 And the Russians on... The World Isn't, guess what?
30:06Controlled by the United States.It's over. It's all around you. The United Nations took a vote on Ukraine, the majority of countries did not agree with the United States.
30:19 They either voted on the side of Russia or they abstained they refused to participate. It's over.
Will they help or not?
30:25 But you live in an environment which needs to deny it. The divisions in our society become worse with each passing day.
30:33 Because they're grounded in a reality that isn't changing inequality
Systemic Denial Persists in the USA
30:39 As I'm speaking to you... [it] is continuing to get worse.
30:45Corporations are working as hard as they ever did to pay no taxes. The mass of people are suffering on a scale that is unspeakable.
30:51The inflation we're still [in]... at prices are going up roughly twice as fast as Wages30:56 That's a destruction of the working class.
31:03 Prices are going up twice the rate of wages. This is impossible. You can't do this without explosions. Now the explosions are happening in our country.
31:16So they explode, how? By taking it out on one another... crime,
bitterness, resentment, a politics of scapegoating.
31:28 I mean how else explain Preposterous Notions that become serious?
31:35 This is a country, United States, of 325 to 330 million people.
Prices are going up twice the rate of wages. This is impossible.You can’t do this without explosions.
Immigrants Are Not the Problem People… MAGA Is Lying to You to Keep You Deaf, Dumb, Blind and Very Obedient to the Oligarchs
31:41 The biggest estimate I've ever seen of undocumented immigrants in our country says 10 million. Okay... there's no way 10 million of the poorest people there are, immigrants from Central America, are the cause of the difficulties of a capitalist economy of 330 million people.
31:58 That's silly. That's on a level, you know, that an elementary school kindergarten kid wouldn't come up with something as off the chart as that.
There’s no way 10 million of the poorest people there are, immigrants from Central America, are the cause of the difficulties of a capitalist economy of 330 million people.
You Are Desperate… I Understand… but Denial Won’t Help You
32:04 You're desperate.
32:10 I understand that. You've been suffering, you have, you have a right to be angry and upset, no question you do.
32:17 You have been screwed in this system, having been led to believe by those 100 years that the opposite was waiting in store for you.
32:23 Instead, you're being being slapped and whacked and deprived with no end in sight.
32:32 I teach at the University. I'm surrounded all the time with people in 18 19 into their 20s. They are not happy this generation.
32:40 They don't see good jobs. They don't see good Futures. They don't see any of it. They were led by their
32:48 They were led by their parents and this culture to expect what they now know they're not going to get.
32:53 And they want some answers too. The most recent Gallup poll indicates that a majority of Americans polled, randomly, [who were] 35 years of age and younger, when asked would you rather live in a capitalist or a socialist economy? the majority say
33:14 The majority say socialist.
33:19 You know after half a century of ideological pressure against everything social that I grew up in, I'm a product of that, this is amazing.
33:25 That the point of view could be twisted like this and when you talk to students as I do about this all the time, I quickly learn the polling is correct.
33:32 But it's not that they like socialism, they haven't a clue what it is.
33:39 Those votes that polling is [revealing is] because they are angry at Capitalism. They know that that system is not for them. socialism I mean let's try that but
33:48 It's not that they like socialism, it's that they don't like capitalism, but that has to be faced. I'm not making these
33:54 I'm not making these numbers up. You can't come away from what I've just said with an imagination that all is well in this Empire.
33:59 But I'm not done. Now, we're blaming Russia. What?
34:06 Russia invaded. I've been a victim of war in my own family. My own life. I'm against war. War is no way to solve problems.
34:13 The Russians shouldn't, could have done something else, should have done something else. I get that, but like with every war you have to ask why did it come to this?
34:20 Russians have suffered from war as much as any other country in the last century.
34:25 They're not going to go into a War easily and quickly. They're not like the United States upon which no war has been fought in the last century.
34:33 Both world wars killed more Russians than anybody else.
34:38 They know. So why? You have to ask why? We don't.
Why So Much War
WHY?
34:45 So let me end with military. Since the end of World War II, the United States has invaded small countries repeatedly, violating norms-rules based international order.
34:59 It invaded Korea. It invaded Vietnam. It invaded Iraq. It invaded Afghanistan. It lost all of them.
35:07 The wars were lost: Korea, Vietnam, they all were lost.
35:13 The Communist Party of Vietnam took over that country. The Taliban took over Afghanistan. I could go on.
35:18 They lost. They didn't win. They lost and if you look at the line between the Russians and the Ukrainians it has moved Westward.
35:28 There is there is no question of who's winning and who's losing.
35:35 Only in the minds of people committed to denial are these things going on.
35:41 I'm not asking you to endorse either side in this war. I'm not asking you to endorse China or the Chinese system.
35:47 I'm just asking you, and I do this with all my public speaking, I'm asking you look at the reality you have in front of you.
35:53 Don't be afraid.
35:59 The danger lies in denial, not in facing it, and if we face it there is a lesson to be learned from the British Empire.
36:05 After two attempts to militarily force the United States back into the British Empire, after those two efforts had failed the British Empire stopped trying and decided instead to try to work out a relationship with the United States, which it did, not the greatest job but did a pretty good job.
36:30 The biggest waffle came in the US Civil War. When the British seriously considered siding with the South.
36:38 They didn't, but they came close. After that though... once they could see who won there, they went with the winner.
36:43 A very courageous move [said with humor] Once the war was over.
36:50 But maybe we have to learn that we have to live with the People's Republic of China. It has virtues.
36:55 We could learn from them, just as they could learn from the United States. And that [could] be a better plan than what they're doing now.
37:03 American 7th Fleet is in the China Sea. There is no Chinese Fleet on our border.
37:08 We are there. We are threatening them. We always have.
37:14 This is a country that is now our economic competitor. Its Global political reach is extraordinary.
37:21 And it has four times the number of people we do, and now that they're close, mostly allied with India, you're talking about the two largest countries by population on this planet.
37:32 You better come to terms with them.
37:39 Because the prospect of defeating that in a war... that's a war everybody loses.
We Must Stop the Denial or We Are Toast
We have to stop the denial & face what is going on… or we are all toast…
37:46 You don't have that option unless you're crazy. We have to stop the denial and face what is going on otherwise we are going to get ourselves into one mess after another.
37:58And who's going to do it? The corporations that are profiting from this system?38:04Unlikely.38:10The rich who have become richer for 40 years, are they likely to question the system that has rewarded them that way?Unlikely.38:16 You know who's going to do it, if anybody does, it's the mass of the people, the employees of this culture, or if you allow me the old language: the working class... because it's their ass that's on the line.
38:28They're the soldiers and they're the taxpayers who keep the system going and that's probably whydenial has won over honest confrontation with our reality. Marx once said that the
38:44 Marx once said that the capitalist class will in the end destroy itself the question for all of us and all of you is: Will we let that system take us down with it?
Will we let “the system” take us down with it?
Dr. Richard Wolff from a Different Angle
Trump’s billionaires will accelerate American decline. Dr. Richard Wolff explains how.
DOGE Debunked: Billionaires Are Robbing You and Calling It โEfficiencyโ w/ Prof. Richard Wolff ||| “What we are seeing here is pure IDEAOLOGY”.. not REALITY. Republicans have always hated taxes, so they pandered to extremists groups–Nazis, White Supremacists, anti-abortionists to form a base just powerful enough to get them elected into positions of power
Min 9:41: “We are watching a billionaire government doing what’s good for them… for the business class they represent… for the super wealthiest among them and their Savaging working class families.“
D. Mann — Sapience: The Moment Is Now
Chapters on How the Corruption Entered Human Civilization Leading to Humanity’s Fall Over the Climate Cliff… a fictional future that doesn’t seem so fictional now… pages 138- 147
The Corruption
Mother called the artery clogging disease that kills civilizations the Corruption. It cuts up cohesive cooperation with selfish self-interests. Money often lies at the root of the Corruption. Money is the shiny, bright object, often presented as a bribe or a false promise of prosperity (but only ifโฆ), that lures people to do bad things. The Corruption entices good, peaceful people to do bad things, things that benefit only a few people, not the good of all people living in a system who rely on cooperation to survive.
As the Corruption goes to work eroding cooperation, cohesion, and unity, the shared lines of a civilizations conscious awareness begin to clog with the hard plaque of fear, anger, and pain. People get hurt. People donโt know who to trust. People grow cynical. This toxic brew fosters an internal inferno where even more sticky and toxic plaque gets forged and deposited over the first layer of hardening, rigid consciousness. This second layer of plaque is uniquely human for it can transcend or descend the guard rails of instincts. The toxic plaque deposited over fear, anger, and suffering is hate, greed, envy, and revenge.
When enough civilizing lines of cohesion get clogged or a main artery becomes blocked, the inner crisis quickly manifests into physical reality. Such a blockage initiates destructive metabolism or catabolism. This is a systematic death within the Mental Model that destroys all systems the people living within the civilization depend upon to survive. Left without any means of keeping themselves alive, the people must flee or die. It is a catastrophe. It is the ouroboros who has eaten its own body up completely.
This is why mother travelled into the Western arteries of consciousness. This is why she met her father. This is why her parents were working on a book combining their knowledge and wisdom. Being a person herself of two radically different cultures and tribes of men, Rain understands from Grandmotherโs stories the Ojibwe know how-to live-in harmony with their inside world and outside world. They have always known and still know. But they were subjugated and sidelined by the overwhelming virulent collective force emanating from Europe.
This is where one of the most virulent strains of the Corruption migrated at a time white Europeans figured out how to cross the ocean and were intoxicated by their own technical know-how and abilities. A competitive edge that would have devasting consequences for the rest of the world; consequences that would put the world squarely in the jaws of fate, the Ouroboros.
Whiny, Violent, Petulant Thing
Rain understands from Fatherโs and Motherโs stories that the Corruption started long ago in civilizations developing in and around the Fertile Crescent. Due to the abundance of civilizations evolving there, once the Corruption killed one civilization, it had already infected another civilizationโviolence, fear, and pain are its vectors. Each time it jumps; it mutates and grows more virulent, more noxious, more pernicious, and deadlier.
The Corruption did not just infect civilizations in the Fertile Crescent. Wherever human cultures grew lopsided, cultivating violence, fear, and pain, it had emerged. But it was the Cradle of Civilization where the Corruption grew most virulently, where it mutated for more than 5,000 years. Where it grew into a disease of consciousness capable of creating catastrophes that only grew bigger and more terrible with time. Where man applied his mind to make weapons of mass destruction, instead of making sure everyone in his civilizations were fed, secure, and sheltered.
The Corruption is the disease that will stop the collective heartbeat of humanity on Earth. White European culture is the tip of the spear that made the Modern world, of course, but this Thing now holding all life for ransomโฆ it is something far deeperโฆ something far more pervasiveโฆ something existing inside all humans, of all times, of all places, and of all cultures.
This is why Mother travelled into the darkest and most dangerous realms of human consciousness. And it is why Father studied history and religion. And it is why Yong Xing-li knew the final stages of the Transformation were essential to prevent the world from turning right back around and heading over the Climate Cliff.
This Thing is a whiny, violent, petulant, and very thin, polluted stream of human consciousness. It was, as Mother discovered, not just Western Civilization responsible for the ruin of the planetโฆ Western Civilization simply controlled and imposed by brute force the economic systems that would come to define the Modern World. And the Modern World would readily agree to play by these rules because economic supremacy provides a legitimate, nonviolent means to rule the world!
The Long Game
In this game, everyone willingly agrees to cede power and authority to the person or entity who amasses the most money. By winning the money game, a person or an entity can claim the number 1 spot on the playing boardโฆ which is round, not flat, is 71% water, and has an oxygen rich atmosphere. A person or entity in the number 1 spot gets to define the parameters by which everyone else must play the money game, that isโฆ until they get knocked off by someone or something that amasses more money.
The money game is the survival game but with a twist of malevolent satire. It is played on the Field of Mind, which exists anywhere a human can walk or go. People call the money game: Economics. It is a long game. And to play it well requires intelligence, acumen, wit, comprehension, reason, acuity, alertness, cleverness, insight, intuition, talent, and ability. It is a game defined in the early days of civilization, and it was complicated then. In the 5,000 years since, it has only become more complicated and harder to play.
Those who lack mastery or ability to play the game resort to brute force, deception, and violence. These are quite frankly weak, incompetent people who are willing to do anything to win. Incompetent people can only win by cheating, but cheaters are a dime a dozen if the rules of the money game are thrown to the wind. So, the most arrogant, greedy, and crafty incompetent people devised ways to subjugate the Model of Mind used by every modern economic and political power system to cheat at the money game, so they always win.
Pyramid Model of Mind
Masters of Time Fail to Master the Mind
The most powerful Model of Mind is the Pyramid Model, of course. It was conceived long ago by peaceful people who loved life, loved their land, loved their homes and children and culture. People who were mastering their minds and coming together to live in bigger and bigger groups growing into civil societies.
Civil societies grow to become civilizations. It is something that happens naturally like flowers growing in a field or rainbows appearing in the sky whenever rain and sunlight mix. They are the inevitable next step once Homo sapiens grew beyond the embryonic sac of instincts when they learned how to sing to themselves. Civil societies just happen because being civil to each other is how humans survived this long. And when a civil group of people start cooperating more broadly with other civil groups of people, they grow into civilizations.
Many civilizations all over the world conceived of the Pyramid Model of Mind. And many used it to mold their civil societies into a unified collective that can act as a single being. Such unanimity creates the living entity called civilization, which is what Mother came to believe civilizations really are, creatures. The more undivided in belief and behavior, the greater coherence of collective action can be conducted as a large group of people acting as one, like a God or a super being or a monster.
It was the ancient Egyptians who perceived first of the opposite side of growing into a great and glorious civilization. They perceived of a looming and growing danger capable of destroying a civilization no matter how great or glorious it had become. Because of this awareness, they took great care in mastering and perfecting the Pyramid Model of Mind, not just as a mold for their society, but as a way of protecting themselves from the Ouroboros, and then as a way of transforming their collective consciousness when they realized there was not a way to avert their fate once they passed a certain level of civilization.
They were the first to master the Pyramid Model of Mind, and they were the first to decapitate it. What they did not realize then was the Ouroboros is thought, specifically the circular thinking required by civil societies so individuals can specialize. Repetitive thought opens the door to a sort of sleepwalking through life; no longer did a person need to worry about getting food, water, shelter, or how to avoid being eatenโtheir civilization insulates them from all of that. All they needed to worry about was doing their specialized task really well and following along in the mainstream of their civil societyโs norms and behaviors.
Playing Thinkers for Fools
And here is where the Ouroboros plays the thinker for a fool. People who can play the money game reasonably well enough to live and willingly obey the rules become sitting ducks for people who lack access to or mastery of the money game. These are also the people most susceptible to the venom of the split aspects of the Ouroborosโthe White snake and Black snake, the Narcissist, and the Psychopath. These are people who flip the rules of civil society into their opposite form and turn the transformative power of the Pyramid Model of Mind into a penitentiary.
It is people corrupted by the Ouroboros who play the systems of their civil societies in reverse. Rather than looking out for the good of all, they look out only for the good of one, themselves. They are attracted to power like a magnet is attracted to nails. And wherever they land within the structure of their society, they punch holes in it like an earth auger. Get enough of such people in a civil society, and they eat away at the fabric of cooperation and civility like a colony of very hungry termites. They do this by infecting others with fear and doubt. They go around blaming and shaming others for their own fears and failures. They play the blame game to create a smoke screen: Blame the other guy for the very things they are guilty of doing or want to do! All the while, they are stealing from, impoverishing, and generally putting the lives of people who wish to live in peaceful, cooperative societies in danger, sometimes grave danger.
Decapitating the Pyramid
Get such a person lodged in the upper rungs of the flow of power in the Pyramid Model of Mind, and you get a person who not only knows how to use the rules of civil society to trap and imprison another person, but you get a person who has access to the very systems responsible for maintaining a civil society. This is very dangerous. Because corrupted men in powerful positions quickly find ways to divert the flow of power to themselves. Then, they consolidate power, wealth, and prestige at the very top, where there is only room for one, themselves. And that is when they strike like a snake, decapitating the flow of power.
This is how the Pyramid Model is decapitated and turned into a prison rather than a system of transformation. Dictators, tyrants, and terrorists tend to decapitate the pyramid it at the soldier level, using violence, fear, and terror to control everyone living below them or to imprison forever or kill those who do not agree with them. They call their new, improved economic game communism, totalitarianism, and despotism. Monarchies, oligarchies, and democracies tend to decapitate the pyramid social order at the scribe level, who in modern societies are intellectuals who use their thinking skills to confuse, baffle, distract, or outright deceive ordinary people from what is really going on. They call their new, improved economic game capitalism. And there are hybrid decapitations too such as commie-capitalism.
Decapitated Pyramid Model of Mind
Just before the Fall, not only was there an abundance of ruthless corrupted rulers eager to rule decapitated hierarchies, but there was an abundance of people who wanted to be ruled by them. What they share is a rigid, aggressive mindset that disliked subjectivity and imagination, and one that is extremely superstitious and views others through simplified stereotypical biases. It is a mindset obsessed with projecting idealized images of their own grandeur, power, and toughness. It is a mindset that takes credit for all the good things that happens and blames others for the bad. It is a cynical and destructive mindset to the point of feeling hostility towards anyone who does not believe exactly like them. Anyone thinking outside of their bubble of belief is assumed to be insincere, self-centered, and dangerous, which is really all the things that they themselves are but refuse to admit, and so they blame the other guy.
In short, these are humans standing in toe-deep water of their consciousness; everything beyond that on their islands of one is believed to be wild and menacing, not to be trusted. Lacking access to and understanding of their own most basic instinctual drives and emotional impulses, they cast their worst nightmares onto everyone else, becoming especially concern with sexual on-goings of others, never taking responsibility for their own short-comings and inability for self-reflection. These are fearful humans, sad humans, pitiful humans who fall victim to the Dark Triad over and over and over again, which is really a Dark Tetrad because there is a fourth hidden, malicious personality that was propagating like hot cakes just before the Fall.
The Dark Triad is the embodiment of narcissism or psychopathy in a human being, and when narcissism and psychopathy are contained inside one human skull, you get the third embodiment, which is a Machiavellian demon being. If sadism is added inside this same skull, you get one of the most disturb personality disorders to have evolved among humans: the Dark Tetrad. These are people who openly tell others that trolling the Internet is their favorite activity; a full-time Internet troll finds pleasure inflicting pain on others and the Internet is their favorite playground.
But given real power over other people, the Dark Tetrad becomes the most venomous vector of the Corruption. It can awaken and activate these same qualities in other people, twisting and contorting their public performances into violent, selfish, gruesome displays of ignorance. This is essentially what personalities are, the performance of a personโs consciousness in public. Through a personโs personality, it is possible to tell how mature or immature consciousness has developed within an individual human being. A mature consciousness can navigate between the extreme opposites arising from inside and choose civil, life promoting action; an immature consciousness cannot. Such a person is susceptible to the pull of extreme points of view, and no matter what side a person takes, uncivil, non-life promoting action results.
With the modern world increasingly revolving around a tiny screen people carried around with them 24/7 connected to a global audience with the ability to be anonymous, uncivil performance became a contest too tempting for most people to resist. Anyone having a bad day could blow off short-term frustration, disappointment, or anger with hostile, pithy comments. And if they get a lot of likes from other frustrated, disappointed, angry people in the world who like them are having a bad day, a culture that cultivates hate arises that soon turns into an addiction, an excuse to not take responsibility for oneโs own anger, limitations, bad decisions, and consequences for the bad choices and actions they, and only they, made and acted on.
Rather than work to understand unconscious, underlying motivations and beliefs that feed their inner demon and allow it to take control of their thoughts and actions, people increasingly ignored the root causes of their irritations and anger. More and more people preferred to attack other people who they have never met and will never know or who they have dehumanized, so they feel no responsibility for their wellbeing. And because children like to run in packs, such individuals attract the following of other disaffected people around the worldโฆ no longer did losers run in packs of 2 or 3, now millions belonged to a growing cohort of people increasingly uncomfortable in the real world requiring real interactions and real relationships that take real time to grow and that also require taking responsibility for oneself.
Just before the Fall, there was a tidal wave of fake news, trolling, and hate culture exploding on city streets and propagating on the world wide web. This paved the way for the spread of the Totalitarian mindset. It took root in the minds of ordinary people everywhere in the world. People who had conditioned themselves not to take responsibility for anything, and so when โBig Daddyโ comes along saying: โI will take care of everything for you!โ โฆ losers, haters, trolls of the world bow down and follow because they have trained themselves to be followers.
Mindsets are different than Models of Mind in that they form inside the overarching shape of a civilization like dust or pollen do in the natural world. Mindsets float about and coat ideas emerging within a civilization covering them with a fine layer of goo. Mindsets can obscure good ideas with thick layers of mucky thinking. And they can make ordinary ideas rigid and inflexible. They can also make bad ideas very sticky so that they clump together to create very, very bad ideas, lopsided ideas, extreme ideas, dangerous ideas that fail to see where the real danger is emanating fromโฆ and usually, in the world man made, it is coming from inside.
Mindsets require people capable of communicating the key features, traits, qualities, and ingredients of the mindset for they are basically scripts to stories that people are supposed to follow. This is why you can always recognize the difference between a mindset and a mental model because mindsets prescribe, advise, direct, urge, command. Mental models only provide a shape that an individual can choose to stay within or not, and if they choose to stay, it is up to them and their quality of mind how it is filled.
Because of this difference, mindsets must always have creators and purveyors of the mindset. And then, to work, mindsets need followers. The more charged with emotions a mindset is made; the more people are attracted to them. Once fused together, like a shepherd to his sheep, a preacher to his parishioners, or a cult leader to his cultists, it is very hard to separate people from their mindsets.
The Totalitarian mindset is one of the most aggressive, cruel, mean-spirited, spiteful, malicious, nasty, callous, pitiless, savage, cold-hearted, hostile, and beastly mindset ever hammered out inside the human mind. And it was spreading faster and infecting more people than ever just before the Fall.
Game of Isms
Another way to spot a mindset is if it ends with an ism. The Modern world operating underneath decapitated pyramids, aka corrupted hierarchies, ruled by corrupted men was speckled like a face full of pustules of isms just before the Fall.
Isms are thinly veiled attempts to legitimize the corruption that the people on top use to ride roughshod over the rights, opinions, and feelings of the people they have imprisoned in their decapitated pyramid. For people exhausted from just trying to survive, adhering to an ism is easier than going against it if it has gained enough momentum to become the prevailing wind in a system or civilization.
However, what a corrupted person really desires is that people believe in the ism and commit to it before they really understand what they are committing to. Corrupted people work hard to make an ism especially appealing to the hard-working people in a decapitated pyramid. Such isms promise good things to people who follow its teachings or script. These isms have a way of spreading far and wide before an antidote is found for them. By then, it is too late to inoculate the people who have succumb to such isms. Reality itself cannot dissuade a person from the false promises, covenants, and guarantees people believe they will receive if they follow the ism obediently and precisely.
The sad truth is anything that gets infected by an ism, even if it begins as a very good idea, tends to grow to be more stringent, drastic, exhaustive, and insane. This is because isms tend to grow ever more reactionary, fanatical, and revisionary over time. Isms decay like this because their core ideologies must continually warp to keep people trapped in the shallowest regions of their mind, and this is exactly where the Totalitarian mindset want people to be.
Just before the Fall, the Totalitarian mindset was disguised by every make and model of an ism a person could dream up. It came in every shape and color, every creed and system of belief or narrative. Some isms cast longer and darker shadows than others. But all must spin spell-binding stories out of one ism or anotherโliberal socialism, radical conservatism, crazed conspiracism, or the more standard models of communism and capitalism.
Saving A Dying World
It is decapitated pyramids, cynically called functional hierarchies, that came to rule the survivors of Earth under totalitarian minded CEOs and Multis. Yong Xing-li was unique because he had mastered the economic game using his intellect. But he also possessed compassion, caring, and patience, which is the essence of heart and heart is the home of wisdom.
Yong Xing-li understood it is the combination of intellect and heart that wins the long game of economics. His understanding combined with his intelligence and innate empathy secured Yong Xing-li the number 1 economic spot in the world. But it was a dying world. Rather than capitalize on death, Yong Xing-li used his economic position to do something about it, to change the fate of the world ruled by civilized humans.
In a way, Yong Xing-li is the closest thing the world had to Buddha or Jesus Christ at a time the world needed a savior more than ever. But like Jesus, he was killed for his passion to save people. Yong Xing-liโs mastery of the long game did not make his task easier. In fact, it probably made it a lot harder.
Rain remembers Father often saying with a downcast smile, โIf Jesus was alive today and trying to do what he did 2,000 years ago, nobody would care, nobody would listen to him, nobody would follow him, and he would probably end up in prison or institutionalized because everybody thinks that only they, and they alone, know how to fix and rule the world.โ
Rain knows now why father always said this with a sad, downcast smile. She not only knows what father knew, but she feels it too. Just like father, mother, grandmother, and Yong Xing-li she feels the suffering of people in a world brought into being based on greed, hate, and violence; a world most people had no hand in making but have been forced to submit to serving.
Conclusion: A Call to Action
As we confront the convergence of political, economic, and psychological crises, this blog underscores the urgency of understanding where we stand and how we got here. Adam Mockler reminds us of the immediacy of our democratic struggle, urging us not to accept the current trajectory as inevitable. Richard Wolff provides a sweeping historical and economic perspective, showing the fragility of empires and the devastating consequences of denial and inaction. Finally, Sapience: The Moment Is Now offers a way forward, emphasizing the power of empathy, cooperation, and self-awareness to confront these challenges head-on.
We stand at a crossroads. Blame and division will only accelerate our decline, but there is hope in recognizing our collective responsibility and capacity for change. The choice before us is stark: to repeat the mistakes of the past or to rise above them, working together to shape a sustainable and just future. The time for action is now.
How Would A No Labels Presidential Candidate Change the Outcome in 2024?
This blog focus on the idea that the non-profit organization called No Labels plans to put a third party candidate into the 2024 Presidential Campaign. While I agree with Ryan Clancy’s idea of creating more choice for American voters, it is an extremely, short-sighted, ill-conceived, and premature idea to try to do this year.
While 60,000 voters think a third party candidate can win, so far no third party candidate has ever come close to getting a toe hold into the White House. There are so many more MAGA voters inspired by cooky myths, lies, and the very scary Seven Mountain Mandate men, of whom Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are examples of women leaning heavily into “Let’s Do Medieval Again!“
The Stakes
This year, more than any year in American history, the stakes are higher than most people care to believe or admit or reckon with. Having Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West already running on third party tickets is concerning. So now, we want more choice and add a No Labels ticket too?! Really, this year, when King Kong and his MAGA base is coming to rip down democracy and replace it with the Christian Alt Right Stary-Eyed, Let’s Have Kings Again, The Seven Mountains Mandate men?!
Who are The Seven Montains Mandate men and women? Think Handmaids Tale.
It is not: “Oh the guy I voted for didn’t do the one thing I really wanted him to do, so I’m not voting for him again.”
This is an ignorant, short-sighted, and extremely selfish opinion. Running a country of 331+ million people democratically is not done by waving magic wands and fixing this problem instantly, then this problem, then that problem, and so on and so forth…
Do you live in reality people who give this as a reason for not voting for Joe? MAGA voters are a whole different story. They are a battering ram. They want to destroy democracy and rebuild America as a Totalitarian Christian Nationalist Country. Do you, ordinary voters unhappy with Joe want to live in a Christian Nationalist State run by one of the stupidest men on the planet… the Orange Baby?
Bradley Onishi is a former Christian nationalist who's now a professor of religion and the author ofย Preparing for War,ย a critique of the movement and its impact on American democracy.
BRAD ONISHI: I think it has. Christian nationalism is having a moment. It's having a moment in ways that it's requiring those who adhere to its principles and ideologies to respond to it. Folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and others have talked about the ways that Christian nationalism not only informs their understanding of politics, but how they identify explicitly as Christian nationalists. And so we are at a point in American politics where Christian nationalism is something that many people are discussing.
GROSS: Are there many people in Congress who are affiliated with Christian nationalism?
ONISHI: I think it's fair to say that, yes. One of the things that's true about our Congress is that it is disproportionately Christian. Now, there are many different types of Christian people in our Congress from various denominations. However, if we look at the GOP and we look at the tenets of the party's policies and its approach to the upcoming elections, we find core Christian nationalist ideals in that platform. And we find many, many, many members of Congress from the GOP who support those principles. So from outgoing Speaker Kevin McCarthy to current speaker Mike Johnson, all the way to senators and other members of the House, there are many folks who I would describe as Christian nationalists in the United States Congress.
GROSS: What are some of the fundamental principles of Christian nationalism? Like, how would you define Christian nationalism?
ONISHI: I think in very simple terms, Christian nationalism is the idea that Christian people should be privileged in the United States in some way - economically, socially, politically - and that that influence and that privilege is a result of the country being founded by and for Christians. Christian nationalism is not the idea that others can't be here - that if you're a Muslim or an atheist, that you have to leave. It's also not the idea that only Christians can be part of the government. However, for most Christian nationalists, there is a core belief that the story of the United States is one where it has been elected by God to play an exceptional role in human history, and as being chosen by God, it's the duty of Christian people to carry out his will on Earth.
So Christian nationalists take an approach to their Christianity that says it should have an undue influence on our government, on our economics, on our culture, and that it is by dint of our history, the religious faith that is meant to be privileged in our public square. With that said, there are different kinds of Christian nationalists and different ways that people manifest their understanding of the term. But when it comes down to it, if we all sit down as Americans at a table and there are people from different backgrounds, different ethnicities, different faiths, and someone who is a Christian says, just by being at this table, I should have a special place, well, to me, that's Christian nationalism because you're saying that somehow this country is yours in a way that it is not for everyone else. And to me, therein lies the problem.
Go to Fresh Air to listen or read the rest of this interview. It is really, really important!
And this is really creepy:
GROSS: An extreme group of Christian nationalists is the New Apostolic Reformation, and they advocate the Seven Mountain Mandate, which is that Christian nationalists or Christians should lead government, family, religion, business, education, media, arts and entertainment, and that they - all of these sectors should reflect the kingdom of God. And I think I mentioned all seven there. So what does that mean to reflect the kingdom of God in family, religion, business, education, media, arts and entertainment, and the government?
ONISHI: The Seven Mountains mandate is a particular form of understanding human society that says that Christian people are not called to persuade their neighbors to practice the Christian faith, to demonstrate to their fellow Americans that the Christian faith is the faith of love and truth. The Seven Mountains Mandate is, as my colleague Matthew Taylor says, a mandate to colonize the Earth for God. The seven domains as you listed them - arts and leisure and the economy and the government, the family - are seen as mountains of conquest. The goal is not dialogue with neighbors who may be Muslim or atheist or Hindu. The goal is not to simply reflect the character of Christ on earth by way of living a life that upholds his glory and his teachings. The goal is to have absolute authority and power over every facet of human society.
And so we can see here what I take to be a very dangerous approach to practicing Christianity in the public square. It is not one that recognizes democracy or dialogue, pluralism as sacred values. The goal is power. The goal is conquest. And so when one hears about a politician or a leader or anyone in influence, especially as part of our government, who adheres to the Seven Mountains Mandate, that should set alarm bells off immediately.
Democracy Is Not: “Joe’s too old, Joe’s too square, Joe’s too this or that...” This is just as stupid, impatience, ignorant reason to not vote for a known and vetted winner: Joe Biden.
There was a time in the not so distant past when age was considered a plus and must for a ruler. Wisdom takes time to ripen and mature inside of people. And it does not come to everyone who ages… look at the overly large, orange, baby King Kong with his revved up mad as hell MAGA base.
Do you think they are worried about the Orange Giant being too old… his less than 4 years younger than Biden!! Anyone giving this as a reason not to vote for Joe is suffering from ageism and is pretty ignorant about how a government governing 331+ million people really works! It takes a lot of people to make it work… good people who are appointed to their positions in a timely fashion and have the expertise and experience to do their jobs. Trump had the most vacancies in top, critical positions of any former President. Some key positions were never appointed under the Orange Giant.
Democracy Is Not: “I’m mad a Joe for aiding Israel.” Modern nation-states are messy… alliances are messy… the world is messy and hard and cruel… that is why nations make alliances, and when Israel was attacked by HAMAS in one of the bloodiest, most gruesome slaughters of innocent people of this century, of course US comforts and supports Israel. There is so much going on behind the scenes that you and I never hear about. The death of any innocent person is intolerable. And Joe and his cabinet are doing their damn best to push for resolution, ceasefire, peace. But, tell me, anyone threatening not to vote for Joe because he can’t wave his wand and make this bloodshed stop… DO YOU REALLY THINK THE ORANGE GIANT (the man to put in place the Muslim Ban days after taking office)…. DO YOU REALLY THINK he is a better option?! I was mad at Obama for not doing more to stop the slaughter of Syrians being bombed by Russia as they aided their ugly ally Bashar al-Assad.
Take A Minute, Learn Something… Maybe Something New
Do Americans really understand democracy? Do Americans really cherish it? Do American comprehend what is at stake this year?
No Labels Debate
It is a choice. Listen to this debate and listen to Fresh Air if you are truly concerned about making an informed, intelligent choice.
The centrist group No Labels is planning to host a bipartisan nominating convention in 2024. This is leading some people to speculate that they may promote a third-party candidate that better reflects the perspective of middle-of-the-line voters who donโt favor President Bidenโs re-election bid or Donald Trump receiving the Republican nomination.
Those who say it will help Trump argue the group doesnโt have enough influence to make lasting tangible change and worry that promoting a third-party unity ticket will give an unpopular candidate like Trump a lower threshold for votes that wouldโve gone to Biden.
Those who disagree say voters who are discontented with both major parties but particularly opposed to Trump, might turn out in support of the third-party candidate, indirectly reducing Trump's chances.
With this context, we debate the question: โHow Would A No Labels Presidential Candidate Change the Outcome in 2024?"
Rahna Epting argues that the No Labels Party does not have a path to win the presidency. Ryan Clancy argues a No Labels unity presidential ticket has a viable path to win the White House in 2024. Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan moderates.
Open to Debate:How Would a No Labels Presidential Candidate Change the Outcome in 2024?
Feature Archetypal Animation
Music: Mickey Mouse Operation | Little People — [11] Fisticuffs At Dawn ย ย ย 1:02
The Northman really resonated with me. And I know, I’m one year behind its debut. I am often behind the wave of popular culture tending to wait for a time that feels right to me to engage in the drama or story being presented–be it through movie, book, or song.
Often when I do this, the timing coalesces with my own creative work and the act of watching a drama or reading a story feds my inner world. I think creative works no matter what time, place, or culture have always served to feed our inner beings and to strengthen the invisible realms we all inhabit because we are sentient, self-aware living beings.
Circle of Sacred Creation
When we watch, read, or listen to any act of creation, we complete the circle of the sacred act of creating. This sacred circle of creating is something humans do that empowers us to master and control the world in ways no other living beings have done on Earth.
Throughout most of human history this sacred circle of creativity was revered and highly valued for every group of humans struggling to survive understood the transformative power of symbols. They understood how symbols can awaken and transform human consciousness. They knew the power of collective human endeavor, and they could feel how collective cultural symbols galvanized collective will.
However, this process of creative completion has been dreadfully downgraded in our Modern Age. We have cheapen it by slapping monetary values onto creative workd determined by arbitrary values such as how much money a movie made on its opening weekend.
This is true of books and songs too, while paintings and sculptures still get a pass tending to gain monetary value over time rather than lose it. However, collective judgements are made on these works too. Judgements that determine which works of art get displayed in museums or galleries as worthy of the public’s attention. Judgements that are often heavily laced with biases such as race, social status, gender identity, religious identity, or any other label we want to throw on people.
Monetary value of creative works tends to act like a rating system or popularity contest. It is a sign of our time. A time when hard-working, ordinary men and women are stressed, over worked, under paid, in constant fear of losing their jobs, and 10,000 other things all modern people must pay attention to survive in a modern civilized society. So it is no wonder people need distractions to silence a restless inner feeling that something is terribly amiss, awry, unsatisfactory, adrift, and completely out of order in our lives.
Since we don’t have time to wonder why we feel this way, we try to distract ourselves from this unpleasant feeling or any unpleasant feeling we may have in the course of living our overly sped up lives in our overly complicated societies.
In search of the next fix, the next distraction, most modern people don’t have the time or energy to complete the creative circle by digesting what they have experienced. The creative thing is reduced to its most superficial qualities and forgotten as the hungry collective searches for the next big blockbuster thing.
Synchronistic Perfection
So, I missed the crashing wave of The Northman that debuted in 2022. It is a Nordic tale about Prince Amleth who witnesses his father’s murder by his uncle Fjรถlnir who lusts for the throne and his mother. It sounds like Hamlet or even the Lion King, but this story is much older than both. This story is the cradle from with Hamlet and the Lion King emerged.
Young Prince Amleth narrowly escapes his own death and is forced to flee his Icelandic homeland. The story fast-forwards 20 years to a grown Amleth who is a warrior of a Viking Raiding party making its way up a river to raid a Rus settlement. These are other Vikings who settled in the area that we now call Russia. In fact, Russia comes from Rus.
But the timing for me watching it just shy of the United State’s 4th of July holiday weekend, is a matter of synchronistic perfection. This July 4th weekend marks 5 years since I had a chance to save my father, who was also a Northman.
I had an intense feeling around this time 5 years ago that I should hop on a plane and go see dad. I did not because my husband had just left to go deal with his narcissistic mom playing her narcissistic games with her children. Our daughter had just graduated from high school and I didn’t want to leave her alone her last summer home before going to college.
By this time 5 years ago, I had submitted two huge government proposals for a small religious-based non-profit that had previously not had the where-with-all to write or submit government proposals. In less than one year, I had submitted 3 big government proposals and countless other foundation and local government proposals for them. I had not taken any time off since being hired and had accumulated 89 hours of unpaid time I had worked above and beyond the measly 40 hours per week I was paid.
The only catch is my father wouldn’t make it to September 2018 because he would have a massive heart attack later in July. First responders would revive him after 15 minutes of resuscitation efforts and he would be flown to the Mayo Clinic where he would survive 10 more days before dying.
The day after his heart attack, I was by his side and would not leave it until he died. Indeed, I had to make the call to remove lifesaving support and I would be with him when he died. And he had almost made a full recovery, only to not make it.
I won’t retell the tale here. I fully account this terrible time here:
I would be fired by the CEO of this religious organized where I worked for being with my father when he died. This moment marks a downward spiral I barely survived.
Slรกine
When dad died, I was working on the backstory for one of the 7 Warrior-Priestesses that are part of an epic novel I have been writing since 2012.
My story is not published yet, but this did not stop me from working my story’s timeline forward and backwards. Slรกine is a young orphan girl raised by nuns living in Ireland during the mid-800sโa time when the Vikings were plundering and raiding much of Europe and beyond alongside the growing strength and influence of the Catholic church.
In fact, I as reading my new work to dad when he died. I had a vision earlier that morning that I should read to him my story and tell him that it was a sled pulling him across to the other side where his mother and brother and other loved ones were waiting for him.
I told him that he could leave any time and that I would read for as long as he needed. I didn’t think he would die that day. But he did. He departed just after I finished the chapter about Easter.
I had been doing tons of research on life in the 800s C.E., especially Nordic life. So seeing The Northman’s time stamp of A.D. 895 definitely caught my attention and it felt eerily similar to what I had been dreaming into my own story of Slรกine and what happened to her when Viking raiders came to her convent in the early 800s.
Since I am rushing to watch as many DVDs as Netflix can send me before they stop sending DVDs in the mail, I happen to watch the cut scenes and interviews with Robert Eggers (writer-director), Alexander Skarsgรฅrd (actor who plays the grown Amleth, and others involved in the making of The Northman who included historians and museum specialists.
I was struck by how much time and care they took to recreate the known details of Nordic life and culture during this time. The Northman is as much a historical accounting of European history as it is a creative act of entertainment. It does not reduce Nordic raiders to savage brutes but rather gives critical cultural context to why they did the things they did and how it fit into their collective culture beliefs and worldview.
Indeed, if you are paying attention, the people and civilizations depicted from this time are incredibly violent. It is a time of Viking history dominated by male violence, greed, and revenge. No wonder Viking warriors wished to be killed in battle because if they did not die there, they were sure to be picked off by one of their own like what happened to Amleth’s father.
Mashables writes about The Northmen:
"...the friction between man and beast, and the beast within...how you're trying to hold onto your civility and your humanity but the animal comes out,โ says Skarsgรฅrd. "Some of them it just explodes out of the body, and that reminded me a lot of that transformation, that scene in which Amleth sheds his humanity and becomes Bjวซrnรบlfr (or 'bear-wolf'). The beast comes out and he doesn't try to fight it but actually lets it out, which was quite a trip."
Of course, this level of unleashing the beast comes with some uncomfortable modern associations, and The Northman is, in a sense, an examination of Viking men (among weirdly pristine women), and masculinity. Price has written at length on Viking masculinity, noting in an article(opens in a new tab), "Beyond the stereotype, there is a cold truth to Viking male violence. At the height of the 9th-century raids, Viking armies shattered the political structures of western Europe: the loss in blood and treasure was immense, thousands were violated and enslaved. There were parallels at home, too, not just in the form of civil warfare between rival petty-kingdoms, but also in domestic violence...Today there are those who tend to glorify the Vikings in their male, militaristic incarnation, but this is a mistake; they were no heroes, at all."
"The thing is that they do terrible things and they are seen to do terrible things, and that's important," Price tells Mashable of The Northman. "Robert and I talked about this a lot. I personally really don't want anybody to come out of that scene and want to be a Viking."
-- Robert Eggers film. In an age of Viking myth overload, the film doubles down on the details. By Shannon Connellan for Mashable on April 20, 2022
This is such an important point that cannot be emphasized enough. But the problem today is that we DO want to BE like them.
The Heinous Crime Modernity Refuses to Admit
In our rush to become a civilized, modern world, humanity has committed the most heinous act of violence of them all. It is more heinous than Vikings Berzerkers ever committed in their altered states of animal consciousness.
Image from: Mashables | How accurate is ‘The Northman’ to Viking history? Well, itโs a Robert Eggers film. In an age of Viking myth overload, the film doubles down on the details. Alexander Skarsgรฅrd stars as Amleth. Credit: Aidan Monaghan
Western Civilization is particularly guilty of this crime, but all modern civilizations suffer from this transgression. It is a point of view that has steadily invaded and infected pretty much every human being trying to survive in the modern world.
Alan Watts says it best:
And indeed, there is a point of view which occurs in certain forms of paranoia, where people donโt seem to be real. They are mechanisms, and you can think that out quite intensely with a good deal of intelligence. After all, if you start from a good old Darwinian or Freudian basis, and see that man is a material machine, and that the consciousness of man is simply a very involved and complicated form of chemistry, and thatโs what it is, you see? Well, then these awful mechanical things, these Frankensteins that everybody is, they come around and they say, โWell, Iโm alive. Iโm a human being. I have a heart, I love, I hate, I have problems, I feel.โ And you feel like saying, โCome off it! Youโre just a monster, and you put on this civilized act because, really, youโre just a set of teeth on the end of a tube, and got a ganglion behind those teeth which you call your brain or your alleged mind.โ -- WEB AS MUTUALITY | Out of Your Mind Series | Library of Consciousness
And this thing is really, basically, there for two purposes: one, to be cunning enough to get something to eat, to put down the tube, and the otherโyou know whatโMr. Freudโs libido. And everything else, you see, can be construed as an elaborate, subtle way of pretending that thatโs not really what you want to do. But you do, but you put on a great show. Now some people, according to this view, get mixed up. They so repress that what they really want to do is to eat and to screw, that they get involved in higher things that are the masks for these activities, and think that thatโs the real purpose of life. And then they become whatโs called neurotic, because they get involved in being pure camouflage. So thatโs whatโs called escaping from the facts: not looking at life, not looking at reality correctly. -- WEB AS MUTUALITY | Out of Your Mind Series | Library of Consciousness
This Modern point of view permeates the Modern Mind and provides cover for plausible deniability of who we really are as human beings.
We are the creators of Heaven and Hell. We choose what each and every day that we live and breathe what we are going to bring into this world or not allow to grow. And we, the Good People of Earth, have developed the capacity and power to annihilate ourselves and all life on Earth.
We are the Devil and we are the Almighty God himself, but we pretend and play at being Poor Little Old Me!
This way of being in the world has been long in the making. It is the rippling effect of thinking too much, of ripping the world into opposites and colliding into our self-made polarized ideas and beliefs over and over and over again.
The Universe as a dumb thing that must be dominated and controlled (the mindset destroying Earth Now) is a counter reaction from the overbearing influence of religiosity, which really took root and grew into a Titanic force in the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and EuroAsia that have been jostling for survival and supremacy for more than 5,000 years.
In all this jostle, civilizations found religions provided a powerful galvanizing glue that held together the power and authority of a king or an emperor. A ruler could imbue legitimacy to his rule not only through laws and armies, but through the Gods themselves. This was a powerful way to bind together burgeoning cultures and civilizations that were growing larger and larger.
The problem all rulers face as their kingdoms grew bigger and bigger was how to keep everyone on the same page. Every intelligent ruler understood that if the people of his or her kingdom began to crack and fracture into opposing fractions, his/her power and authority would eventually fall victim to the fracturing and fragmentation of the civilization, unless unity could be restored.
But with the advent of highly successfully civilizations, it was getting harder and harder to get everyone to hold the mold and stay on the same page as group. Rulers use many devices to hold the mold of their societies and civilizations, but by far one of the most effective is Collective Beliefs, especially spiritual and religious beliefs.
But, in the early days of civilizations there were so many Gods and Goddess one could pay homage to, and if a ruler selected one to honor above another, he/she would inevitably alienate an important group of people needed to keep the unanimity of the kingdom or civilization and alienation can rapidly lead to loosing control of one’s power, authority, and supremacy.
I write about this in great detail and depth in Book 1 of Sapience Series (look for it 4/24/24), but long story short, it was really convenient for the ancient rulers of pre-Christian civilizations to winnow down the Gods to just ONE. The first ruler to do this is Akhenaten who got rid of all the other ancient Egyptian Gods and Goddesses claiming that Aten is the one and only God, all others are blasphemous, and that he was the one and only chosen son of Aten, represented by the solar disc of the sun.
This was a powerful claim that pissed a lot of people off way back then. When Akhenaten and his beautiful queen Nefertiti died, probably due to plague, the people and the priests abandoned his brand new city built by children appropriated by his kingdom and did everything possible to wipe his memory from Egypts memory.
But the one God would return again and again through the Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These are the biggest ones with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam dominating the modern world. But there are others including Baha’i Faith, Rastafari Movement, Sikhism, Vodou, Eckankar, and Tenrikyo.
One God unifies all the people of a kingdom or an empire under one king or empire under one celestial and holy authority and this is a powerful thing.
In the story I write, I explore the collision and confluence of polytheistic and monotheistic beliefs in great detail, and when I get to Slรกine, I explore the collision between the violent Viking Berzerkers and passive Catholic Priests. It is a colossal clash of opposites that will send shock waves through the centuries.
Indeed, we are still reverberating from this collision, perhaps most especially today.
Christianity Eventually Subdues the Viking Beast
The Catholic priests do suffer for centuries. They are killed, enslaved, and their riches taken by the Vikings for several centuries, but eventually Christianity tames and subdues the Viking beast.
This period of time of Nordic history is beautifully written about by Sigrid Undset in her three part series entitled Kristin Lavransdatter: The Bridal Wreath, The Mistress of Husaby, and The Cross.
This course will focus on the novel "Kristin Lavransdatter", in three volumes 1920-1922, by the Norwegian Catholic writer Sigrid Undset. We will read the novel with reference to Undset's life and other work. "Kristin" is one of the greatest Catholic novels yet written, and it's popularity reignited after its second translation into English by Tiina Nunnally whose edition we will be reading. It's strongly recommended students read as much of the novel ahead of time as they can. The trilogy has nine parts, three per volume, that we will be treating in eight classroom settings. The Nunnally translation is available both in paperback and Kindle.
In pursuit of my interest in all things relating to the history of Northern Europe, and on my wifeโs strong recommendation, I read Kristin Lavransdatter, a trilogy of books written by the Norwegian author and Nobel laureate, Sigrid Undset. Comprised of The Bridal Wreath, The Mistress of Husaby, and The Cross, Kristin Lavransdatter is an unusual work of literature. It looks back on the medieval period without the romanticism of many fantasy authors while also avoiding the stark ugliness which characterize many modern โrealisticโ portrayals of the Middle Ages. In other words, while being a firmly modern writer, she comfortably and capably depicts the time period as it was in accurate detail without feeling the need to push an agenda on the medievals in her portrayal.
If you have not read these stories, I highly recommend them. They honestly portray the positive and negative consequences of this transformation of Nordic culture from mysterious, mythical, pagan beliefs into modern Christian sensibilities and beliefs.
Now my father was a Lutheran minister as was his father and my other grandfather and many of my uncles. Both sides of my family are devout Christian Norwegians. And both sides have done many things that have brought comfort to others who are suffering.
But there is a price for all this goodness. And the price is cutting oneself in half. To be a good Christian, I would be taught early on that I must identify everything bad in me and suppress it. Even better is deny the existence of the beast inside me… the Devil… the very fiend that ancient Vikings clearly knew lived inside of them and called upon to conduct their violent conquests.
And this is a very dangerous thing to do… because if you aren’t the Devil or the dangerous beast… then someone else has to be it because the world is both Good and Bad. Alan Watts calls this duplicity in man’s mind out too.
“Superior virtue is not conscious of itself as virtue, therefore it is virtue. Inferior virtue is conscious of itself as virtue, therefore it is not virtue, it is hooked on being virtuous.”
Alan Watts – The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions
“Inferior virtue can’t let go of virtue, thus not virtue.” — Alan Watts
Watts often says that wars conducted for purely selfish reasons are merciful wars because the raiders want to enjoy the goods of the people they are invading. They want to take their treasures and enjoy their women, and because of this they will not destroy everything.
But wars conducted in the Name of God, or even worse, wars waged by men who claim to be chosen by God and therefore they are waging a righteous war, or even more worse than this, men who believe themselves to a God and they are bringing in a superior, better world, these kind of wars are the most brutal, most merciless, most destructive wars ever conducted by mankind.
When you hear someone invoking the Name of God to legitimize an idea, a cause, a belief, a political party… you should run!
These people are not doing this thing or touting that belief in the Name of God! They are doing this for their own personal Power and Glory!!! They are doing it to get inside your mind! And once inside, the will control you like a hungry Monster!
There have been many monsters like this since the dawning of our gleaming, golden modern age! Monstrous, modern men who have engage in the the most gruesome, heinous Virtue Wars.
All of them have conducted in the name of some God–be it the Holy God Almighty or the God of Ideas (man’s petty, polarizing ideas that they believe will bring glory to the nation, which is really double speak for Power and Glory to themselves). Virtue wars are the bloodiest, most violent, most merciless, most catastrophic wars ever conceived and conducted by mankind.
Each generation of men seems to breed a more hideous monster, and there have been many: Adolf Hitler (Germany 1934-1945), Joseph Stalin (USSR 1924-1953, Idi Amin (Uganda 1971-19790, Pol Pot (Cambodia 1975-1979), Muammar Gaddafi (Libya 1969-2011), Saddam Hussein (Iraq 1979-2003), Benito Mussolini (Italy 1926-1943), and the list goes on and on… to reign terror, destruction, and death on scales never before achieved by one man or one brutal bunch of people.
In some ways, the Vikings were simply more honest about their violence. Today, we glorify their violence while pretending to be Modern, civilized, virtuous beings who know how to make the world a better place.
In fact, they are the only ones who know and they will kill you if you don’t believe them!
This is the world we live in now.
My Dad Was A Northman Too
My dad was a Northman too. He was a civilized one…a man of the cloth…but he had suffered early in life…and he doubted his faith greatly throughout his life, especially as he bore witness to the monstrous things man was doing to his fellow man.
He knew he could not correct the malfunctioning mentally leading to our great destruction as a species, but he did what he could with what he had wherever he was. And he remembered his roots. He knew he was capable of good deeds and bad deeds. Because of this he did not shame and blame others. And because of this, he could truly be with people and comfort them at their times of greatest need and suffering.
Preface to Calculating Hate from the Perspective of 2026
In 2023, when I first wrote Calculating Hate: Itโs In Their Eyes, I was trying to understand something visible but difficult to name. It was there in the coldness of political speech, in the ease with which some people stripped others of dignity, and in the frightening normality of public cruelty. In 2026, that question has only become more urgent.
Hate rarely begins as open violence. It begins as calculation.
Throughout history, ruthless rulers have understood this. They study grievance. They locate fear. They identify old wounds, old humiliations, old tribal loyalties, and then they turn them into political fuel. They do not create hatred from nothing. They cultivate what already existsโresentment, insecurity, fear of change, fear of lossโand then give it permission, language, and targets.
That was part of Donald Trumpโs political genius and danger. To win again in 2024, he did not need to persuade the whole country. He needed to deepen fracture, intensify fear, and turn alienation into loyalty. He tapped into what I call Trumpโs Ignis Fatuusโthe false light that appears to guide but instead leads people deeper into the swamp. It promises restoration, greatness, belonging, strength, and protection. But it feeds on anger, grievance, humiliation, and division. It burns brightest when people feel disoriented and afraid.
The old architecture of American racial power still matters. The murder of Emmett Till remains one of the clearest examples. His white accusers and killers lived inside a social order that protected them. Their whiteness itself was sufficient entry into the circle of impunity.
That circle has changed.
Today, whiteness alone is no longer enough. The elite circle has narrowed and hardened. Increasingly, entry requires ideological loyalty, political obedience, wealth, and willingness to look away. Under Trumpism, the test is not merely racial identity. It is whether one accepts the degradation of others as necessary, normal, or profitable. It is whether one will ignore the humanity of immigrants, political opponents, the poor, the vulnerable, and even democratic institutions themselves.
Trump did something historically significant: he divided white America against itself.
He did not simply intensify racial division between white and nonwhite Americans. He turned citizenship into a loyalty test. He separated those willing to submit to grievance politics from those unwilling to surrender democratic norms. That fracture matters. It reveals that authoritarian movements are not merely about race. They are about hierarchy, obedience, and the concentration of power.
And once a political movement learns how to criminalize one group, it rarely stops there.
History shows the sequence clearly. First come immigrants. Then dissidents. Then journalists. Then educators. Then political opponents. Once the machinery of dehumanization is normalized, the category of โenemyโ expands.
That is why the current moment feels so dangerous. What many now call the Epstein class is not merely scandal or spectacle. It reveals something darker about elite moral decay. The playgrounds of the ultra-richโprivate islands, private compounds, private networks of access and immunityโexpose a culture where ordinary human beings become objects, instruments, entertainment, and disposable bodies.
And this is not reducible to one party.
That is the harder truth.
The rot runs through both major political camps, through finance, media, celebrity, corporate power, and oligarchic privilege. The defining credential is not ideology. It is access. It is wealth. It is insulation from consequence. It is the belief that rules exist for other people.
Jeffrey Epstein understood this with predatory precision. He built environments where wealth, boredom, appetite, immunity, and moral vacancy converged. He understood that extreme privilege often produces not wisdom but numbness. And numbness, left unchecked, can become cruelty.
That same psychological and moral architecture sits at the center of my book, Sapience: The Moment Is Now.
In that world, humanity pushes past the climate cliff. Nation-states fracture. Corporate states rise. Power concentrates in the hands of super-rich CEOs and their loyal enforcersโthe Uppersโpeople rewarded not for conscience but for obedience.
At first glance, their worlds look dazzling.
But beneath the spectacle lies something deadened.
Their playgrounds are not places of joy. They are theaters of psychic collapseโconstructed by people consumed by boredom, domination, self-hatred, estrangement from life, and the inability to feel what ordinary human beings still can: empathy, grief, wonder, love, responsibility.
That is what makes hate so dangerous.
It does not merely destroy its victims.
It hollows out the souls of those who wield it.
And that may be the deepest warning of 2026.
America is not only confronting political extremism. It is confronting a spiritual and psychological crisisโa struggle over whether human beings will continue to recognize one another as human.
The eyes still tell the story.
The question is whether enough of us are willing to look.
Introduction to Calculating Hate form 2023
On April 25, 2023, Carolyn Bryant Donham died in Westlake, Louisiana. She was 88 years old.
Sixty-eight years earlier, as a 21 year old girl, she accused the black teenager Emmett Tilll of whistling at her, grabbing her hand, and asking for a date. All of this except maybe the whistle (which could have been someone else, even someone white) was a lie, but her husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam took it upon themselves to mete out justice, Jim Crow justice, justice laced with hate and loathing.
With Carolyn in the car, Roy and Milam broke into Emmett’s uncle’s house, kidnapped him, then beat, shot, and lynched Emmett beyond recognition. They threw his broken body into the Tallahatchie River where it would not be found for days.
The year was 1955. Because of the bravery of Emmett Till’s mother who insisted on an open casket funeral, the lynching of Emmett Till in Mississippi ignited the spark for the Civil Rights Movement, which would crash across America trying to washout hate.
But hate is a mighty sticky thing. It clings to craggy rocks inside the mind that are full of grievances, grumbles, and grudges. White people cling to hate in order to feel important,in command, and confident about their place in the world. Having seizing power centuries earlier, White people have created tremendous systems of inequality and injustice. And now, White people cling to these corrupted systems for dear life!
They do so because they don’t know if they really can stand on their own two feet. They really don’t know if they can make it in the world where everyone has equal rights, equal opportunities, and true equity. White people are afraid of their own incompetence, ineptitude, and inadequacy. I am White. I know.
I also know hiding behind a wall of seething hate makes people feel powerful for a minute, but that feeling is fleeting. And hate is a very heavy thing. Hate drags people down into Pits of Ignorance. These are very deep, very dark, and very nightmarish place inside every human being, except we are too scared to look.
Calculating Hate: Notes for Book
But that’s the cure! Looking!! That is the only way to vanquish the haunting ghost of hate. Looking and confronting your own Pit of Hate, is the only way not to be controlled by hate. A person has to face it, to own it, and eat it. It is part of being a conscious being.
If you are human, you are processing all sorts of awful feelings and emotions that are in direct competition for your conscious attention. The only way not to get sucked in to one hole or another is to keep both opposites, both sides of yourself, within your gaze of conscious awareness.
Justice is a very important element in digesting consciousness and growing a stronger psychological-spiritual body over time.
Calculating Hate: This undated photo shows Emmett Louis Till, who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in the Mississippi Delta in August 1955 after witnesses claimed he whistled at a white woman working in a store. (ย Fileย /ย AP Photoย ) | Photo from The Take Away, May 1, 2023
No, there won’t. They last person involved in his murder has died.
This is the woman responsible for telling the lie that got Emmett Till killed.
I only learned about Carolyn Bryant Donham’s death yesterday (about a week after she died). I was wrestling with a section in my book about hate. I heard about her death on the Take Away while taking a break trying to do a refresh of my muddled mind.
Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry was speaking with with Timothy B. Tyson who is the author of The Blood of Emmett Till and senior research scholar at Duke University. She was also speaking with Keith Beauchamp who is an award-winning filmmaker behind the documentary โThe Untold Story of Emmett Tillโ and producer of the movie โTillโ about what Bryantโs death means in the quest for justice in Emmett Tillโs murder.
Side note: I am so disappointed with NPR for cancelling this show. We are living through times of unprecedented violence, ignorance, and hate. To survive such times, we need diverse voices. Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry through this show provides such a voice. It is a significant lost on the landscape of sanity, truth, and recovery from the fatal infection of hate.
Calculating Hate: This 1955 file photo shows Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of making improper advances before he was lynched. (Gene Herrick, File/AP Photo) | Photo from The Take Away, May 1, 2023
Calculating Hate:The Take Away — Emmett Till
Melissa Harris-Perry recounts the events of that fateful day in 1955.
On August 28th, 1955, two adult white men, Roy Bryant and JW Milam, kidnapped 14-year-old Emmett Till at gunpoint from his uncle's home in Money, Mississippi. It was the middle of the night. Bryant and Milam beat and shot Emmett. They used barbed wire to tie a cotton jean fan to his neck, and they threw him into the river. When Mamie Till-Mobley received her son's remains, the child was disfigured beyond recognition.
She made a choice so vulnerable and courageous; it altered the course of history. At her insistence, for five days, Emmett's mutilated body lay in an open casket. More than 50,000 people visited the Southside Chicago Church where he lay and millions more saw the shocking photos of the brutalized Boy in Jet Magazine. All bore witness to the stomach-churning realities of Bryant and Milam's racist violence.
"When people saw what had happened to my son, men stood up who had never stood up before. People became vocal who had never vocalized before. Emmett's death was the opening of the Civil Rights Movement. He was the sacrificial lamb of the movement." -- Mamie Till-Mobley
Melissa Harris-Perry: Her steel-spined courage launched a movement for justice, but Mamie Till-Mobley never received even a modicum of accountability for the murder of her son. In 1955, an all-white Mississippi jury refused to convict the killers, and in 1956, Look Magazine paid the men $4,000 to print their confession to the murder. Throughout it all, there was a third co-conspirator, Carolyn Bryant now Carolyn Bryant Donham. It was Mrs. Bryant who told her husband and brother-in-law that Emmett Till whistled at her. It was Mrs. Bryant who told the 1955 Mississippi jury that Emmett physically accosted and sexually propositioned her.
It was Mrs. Bryant, who during the trial, brought her own young sons to the courthouse, dressed in their Sunday best. It's Mrs. Carolyn Bryant captured in a Black and white photo who stands with her head thrown back in laughter, embracing her husband Roy at the end of that farce of a trial. It's a photo that still haunts my dreams and my waking. Late last week, Carolyn Bryant now Carolyn Bryant Donham died at the age of 88 while in hospice care. Joining me now is Tim Tyson, senior research scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and author of The Blood of Emmett Till. Tim, welcome to The Takeaway.
You can read or listen to the entire interview here.
Calculating Hate:My Take Away of The Take Away
I zeroed in on a point in their conversation about how jovial and happy the defendants were when a white jury found Roy and Milam Not Guilty.
Several months after their acquittal, the two men with the help of their defense attorney sold their story to Look Magazine where they admit their guilt. They get even more recognition and celebration by vast swaths of the White Community bathing in racism and hate.
I had to find a picture of these jubilant hate-filled white people. I did. It is very jarring. They are so young, so jubilant, so ignorant (and happy of it). What is even more jarring is that Carol’s sister-in-law, Juanita, looked a lot like me when I was that age.
With that recognition, I immediately realized that if had I grown up in a community infused with hate and racism, I could have easily been that girl smiling so brightly in the courtroom knowing they had all just gotten away with murder.
This recognition of how easily I could have been her is frightening. It elicits a deep and profound feeling of disgust and self-loathing inside myself. I want to condemn her and them, but I know I need to be honest about my own ignorance and hate.
So how do I do that?
The first step is recognizing that hate lives inside of me. It lies in wait like a sleeping dog ready to jump up and bite anything that threatens me, rejects me, injures me, makes me feel bad about myself, threatens my family, threatens my livelihood, threatens my beliefs.
Hate lives inside all of us. If you are a human being who thinks, you are creating hate. It is a natural byproduct of thinking, just like pooping and peeing are natural byproducts of eating. We all produce it just by being human and thinking.
Thinking is division. Thinking is cutting the world up into smaller and smaller pieces to understand it, predicate it, and make it feel safer for us to exist. But when you split the world into pieces in an effort to control it, you always get opposites. We name these opposites Good and Bad, or you might know them as Us and Other (the Evil Other).
So, I recognized myself in the picture of Carolyn and her sister-in-law laughing in court. And then, I found this picture of Carolyn. This picture captures her hate. I see it in the rigid tilt of her head, the stiffness of her shoulders, the hardness of her face, and mostly, I see it in her coldpinpoint, hard eyes.
Calculating Hate: Woman whose accusation led to the lynching of Emmett Till has died at 88, coroner says | Image from CNN report on Carol’s death — You see the hate in her eyes clearly in this photo
When a person is calculating hate, their eyes narrow like slits. The pupils grow smaller and hard like bowling balls. Their glare hardens like ice picks. They are calculating how to kill you.
This the glare I see in this picture. It glare people recognize all over the world. When you see this glare, you should run!
Another source about Carolyn and the murder of Emmet Till is accounted by American Experience: Getting Away With Murder.
It turns out that Roy, Carolyn, J. W. Milam, and Juanita were poor, really poor!
American Experience recounts:
Carolyn Bryant, the daughter of a plantation manager and a nurse, hailed from Indianola, Mississippi, the nucleus of the segregationist and supremacist white Citizens' Councils. A high school dropout, she won two beauty contests and married Roy Bryant, an ex-soldier.
The couple ran a small grocery, Bryant's Grocery & Meat Market, that sold provisions to black sharecroppers and their children. The store was located at one end of the main street in the tiny town of Money, the heart of the cotton-growing Mississippi Delta. They had two sons and lived in two small rooms in the back of the store.
To earn extra cash, Roy worked as a trucker with his half-brother J. W. Milam, an imposing man of six-feet-two inches, weighing 235 pounds. Milam prided himself on knowing how to "handle" blacks. He had served in World War II and received combat medals.
On the evening of August 24, 1955, Emmett Till went with his cousins and some friends to Bryant's Grocery for refreshments after picking cotton in the hot sun. The boys went into the store one or two at a time to buy soda pop or bubble gum. Emmett walked in and bought two cents' worth of bubble gum. Though exactly what happened next is unconfirmed. She stormed out of the store. The kids outside said she was going to get a pistol. Frightened, Emmett and his group left. -- American Experience
Their collective act of violent hate made them popular! In fact, it made them celebrities for a minute.
Calculating Hate:Carolyn Bryant, Chicago Defender | Photo from American Experience — Getting Away with Murder — The hate is not there yet, in her head, it is a latent potential waiting to jump out…
Some reporters talked about Roy and Carolyn's "handsome looks" and J. W.'s tall stature and big cigars. They even alluded to Carolyn as "Roy Bryant's most attractive wife" and a "crossroads Marilyn Monroe." -- American Experience: Getting Away With Murder.
She is pretty in this photo. The hate is not in her eyes. She looks soft and like a doll, which how women had to look back then. Even though women had won the right to vote several decades earlier, misogyny still ruled and ran rampant just like racism. Carolyn knew being pretty was her only asset.
During the trial, the families arrived with their sons dressed in their Sunday best, Roy and J.W. in starched white shirts while their wives donned cotton dresses. Many whites in the surrounding counties showed up to watch the show. They brought their children, picnic baskets and ice cream cones. Meanwhile, African American spectators were relegated to the back and looked on in fear.
Carolyn testified under oath, but outside the presence of the jury, that Emmett said "ugly remarks" to her before whistling. -- American Experience: Getting Away With Murder.
Making up her lie about Emmett Till lifted Carolyn above her station in life, which was a pretty poor station with very few prospects, despite being pretty.
She hadn’t even graduated from high school. Her biggest accomplishments up til this time was winning two beauty contests and marrying Roy, then popping out two babies all before turning 21.
But suddenly, she was popular! Really popular! Hate had made her Great! She was getting noticed and being showered with so much love by others harboring and clinging on to hate, which was most White people in the South just like her.
Now, fast-forward to May 3, 2023. Have we changed very much since this horrible crime?
Calculating Hate: Archetypal Animation from January 2022 blog | When Do We Get To Use Violence? They hate is clearly in Bannon’s eyes as well as loathing…
Calculating Hate:Hate Is Popular
Calculating Hate: Young protestors during the Birmingham Campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, May 1963. The movement, which called for the integration of African Americans, was organized by Martin Luther King Jr. and Fred Shuttlesworth amongst others. (Photo by Frank Rockstroh/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | From 1A; May 2, 2023
Emmett Till’s death ignited the Civil Rights Movement. And a little less than 10 years after his brutal murder, it would be written into law through the civil rights act of 1964.
But not before a lot of pain and suffering occurred as recalled in this interview on 1A.
“Hate was popular,” Jeff Drew tells Jen White in an interview about The Birmingham movement, 60 years later produced by 1A. “What we were trying to do and continue to try to do is bring awareness that everyone is important. Every human being is important.”
On May 2, 1963, hundreds of school-age kids in Birmingham, Alabama, woke up with a plan.
Through coded messages broadcast by local radio DJs, they were given the signal to leave the classroom and meet at the park for a peaceful protest against segregation in the city.
โMy mother said, โIโm sending you to school, donโt get in any troubleโ,โ said Janice Kelsey, who was a 16-year-old high school student in Birmingham at the time. โI was going to school. I just wasnโt going to stay.โ
Jeff Drew also participated in the Childrenโs March. His parents were involved in the Birmingham movement for civil rights and hosted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in their home.
โYou cannot imagine the joy of being on one of those buses on your way to jail,โ said Drew. โWe were nearly dying to participate.โ
Janice Kelsey and Jeff Drew joined us at the Carver Theater in Birmingham last month for a community conversation on the fight for civil rights then and now. Their actions as students in the spring of 1963 brought national attentionโand a new momentumโto the civil rights movement, support for which had been waning as more adults were jailed and reluctant to be arrested.
Civil rights leaders, including James Bevel, recruited young people to participate in a peaceful demonstration on May 2, 1963 in what became known as the Childrenโs Crusade. Hundreds of kids were arrested by police for parading without a permit. Images of police dogs and firehoses being used on students in the city highlighted the injustices in Birmingham and prompted President John F. Kennedy to express support for federal civil rights legislation.
On our trip to Birmingham, we also spoke to the next generation of activists. Ashley M. Jones is a Birmingham native and the Poet Laureate of Alabama. At 32 years old, Jones is the stateโs youngest-ever poet laureate and the first person of color to hold the position. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin also joined us to talk about how the cityโs past informs his role today.
This conversation was recorded in April as part of our Remaking America collaboration with six public radio stations around the country, including WBHM. Remaking America is funded in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
And, 59 years after the Civil Rights Act, White Americans are still rolling in raging pools of hate. Hate is still immensely popular, so popular, people are making tons of money selling it to all the grumpy people holding onto grudges and hurts and who need to take a daily swim in their pool of hate to feel better about themselves!
We have lots of new celebrities helping to spread and celebrate hate. Here are three who have recently been in the news. But there are tons more! We are literally being drown them.
Calculating Hate: The Donald, The Rupert, The Tuckered-out Carlson — Drawing by me
America has a huge problem with hate. We love it so much we want to tear our country in two again. The Civil War really did not end on April 9, 1865. It lives inside the minds of people who are swimming in their private pools of hate.
But, we don’t have to worry… collective hate is running rampant all over the world.
Hate remains really popular everywhere!
Calculating Hate:Collective Hate
So, let’s tackle Collective Hate.
Calculating Hate: Hitler, Putin, Ruthless Rulers… Epstein Class
We all know what it is. Collective Hate is when one group of people dreams about crushing another group of people because it makes them feel powerful (for a minute, this kind of power is fleeting too).
When a group of people full of hate actually act on their hate-filled fantasies, they act like fanatical freaks. That’s because they are… because they have drained the humanity from their being, leaving nothing but a husk that looks human but acts like raging monster crushing, killing, stealing everything from the people they hate.
Collective hate is visceral. It is so toxic it drives the people infected by it mad. Mad humans infected by hate will do the most vicious, brutal, savage things like Roy and Milam did to Emmett Till. Mad, hate-filled humans act in barbaric, fiendish, heinous, hideous ways. It’s an epidemic on Earth right now.
Let’s delve into how hate wraps around a person’s heart and mind to steadily squeeze the humanity out of them.
Calculating Hate:Carolyn Bryant’s Story (or More Aptly Her Great Disappointment)
Now, there is no way I can possibly know what Carolyn was thinking or feeling that terrible day, but let’s suppose, she was feeling a little bit sorry for herself and unhappy about her life. She was a beautiful woman. She knew she was a beautiful woman.
If only things had gone a little bit different 90 years earlier, which is when the Civil War ended (April 9, 1865), she would probably, no: most certainly, she would be living a completely different life right now! (Hate always happens in the Now)
Why instead of being the daughter of a plantation manager and a nurse from Indianola, Mississippi, Carolyn Bryant might instead be a beautiful, beguiling Southern belle like Miss Scarlett O’Hara! But, if only for one tiny, little glitch, that snatched her wonderful, beautiful life away like Gone With the Wind!
Of course the wind that blew her dream life away was that the Confederate lost the Civil War.
Scarlett O’Hara’s best lines (Gone with the Wind)
Because of this glitch, she was condemned to run a small grocery, Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market, selling provisions to black sharecroppers and their children. She took turns with her sister-in-law, Juanita, watching their children and tending the store while their husband’s drove trucks to make extra money because they were all very poor.
The store was located at one end of the main street in the tiny town of Money, the heart of the cotton-growing Mississippi Delta. And also right next to Indianola, Mississippi, which was the nucleus of the segregationist and supremacist white Citizens' Councils.
Carolyn was a high school dropout, she won two beauty contests and married Roy Bryant, an ex-soldier. They had two sons and lived in two small rooms in the back of the store.
-- American Experience: Getting Away With Murder
This was not the life she was supposed to live. She was sure of that! And this made her mad, and more than a little bit grumpy as well as resentful.
These feelings are the perfect ingredients for hate to take root and grow. Combine her personal grievances with the steady drum beat of the Southern Segregationist and White Supremacists constantly spreading their toxic thinking far and wide and polluting the collective swimming pool of human connections that everyone needs to survive, Carolyn Bryant was the perfect instrument of hate.
She bought into the thinking that White people are suppose to give the orders and be in control. She bought into the feeling of being deeply wronged that White people couldn’t stack the social decks in their favor they way they used to do. She bought into the fantasy of yearning for and bringing back the old way of life in the deep South.
Carolyn Bryant was the perfect poster girl for Southern Hate.
Calculating Hate:Crash Course on Cognitive Dissonance
Segregationist and White Supremacists use cracks between reality and people’s dreams/fantasies to break social bonds. One of the things they work hard to increase in the hearts and minds of hurting humans is cognitive dissonance.
In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things.[1] According to this theory, when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent.[1][2] The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein the individual tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.[1][2][3]
Coping with the nuances of contradictory ideas or experiences is mentally stressful. It requires energy and effort to sit with those seemingly opposite things that all seem true. Festinger argued that some people would inevitably resolve the dissonance by blindly believing whatever they wanted to believe.[4] -- Wikipedia: Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance in Politics
Cognitive dissonance theory might suggest that since votes are an expression of preference or beliefs, even the act of voting might cause someone to defend the actions of the candidate for whom they voted,[72][self-published source?] and if the decision was close then the effects of cognitive dissonance should be greater.
This effect was studied over the 6 presidential elections of the United States between 1972 and 1996,[73] and it was found that the opinion differential between the candidates changed more before and after the election than the opinion differential of non-voters. In addition, elections where the voter had a favorable attitude toward both candidates, making the choice more difficult, had the opinion differential of the candidates change more dramatically than those who only had a favorable opinion of one candidate. What wasn't studied were the cognitive dissonance effects in cases where the person had unfavorable attitudes toward both candidates. The 2016 U.S. election held historically high unfavorable ratings for both candidates.[74]
After the 2020 election, which Joe Biden won, supporters of former President Donald Trumpquestioned the results, citing voter fraud. This continued even after such claims were dismissed by numerous state and federal judges, election officials, governors, and government agencies as false.[75] This was described as an example of Trump supporters suffering cognitive dissonance.[76]
Cognitive Dissonance in Self-perception Theory
In Self-perception: An alternative interpretation of cognitive dissonance phenomena (1967), the social psychologist Daryl Bem proposed the self-perception theory whereby people do not think much about their attitudes, even when engaged in a conflict with another person. The Theory of Self-perception proposes that people develop attitudes by observing their own behaviour, and concludes that their attitudes caused the behaviour observed by self-perception; especially true when internal cues either are ambiguous or weak. Therefore, the person is in the same position as an observer who must rely upon external cues to infer their inner state of mind. Self-perception theory proposes that people adopt attitudes without access to their states of mood and cognition.[81]
As such, the experimental subjects of the Festinger and Carlsmith study (Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance, 1959) inferred their mental attitudes from their own behaviour. When the subject-participants were asked: "Did you find the task interesting?", the participants decided that they must have found the task interesting, because that is what they told the questioner. Their replies suggested that the participants who were paid twenty dollars had an external incentive to adopt that positive attitude, and likely perceived the twenty dollars as the reason for saying the task was interesting, rather than saying the task actually was interesting.[82][81]
The theory of self-perception (Bem) and the theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger) make identical predictions, but only the theory of cognitive dissonance predicts the presence of unpleasant arousal, of psychological distress, which were verified in laboratory experiments.[83][84]
In The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance: A Current Perspective[85] (Aronson, Berkowitz, 1969), Elliot Aronson linked cognitive dissonance to the self-concept: That mental stress arises when the conflicts among cognitions threatens the person's positive self-image. This reinterpretation of the original Festinger and Carlsmith study, using the induced-compliance paradigm, proposed that the dissonance was between the cognitions "I am an honest person." and "I lied about finding the task interesting."[85]
The study Cognitive Dissonance: Private Ratiocination or Public Spectacle?[86] (Tedeschi, Schlenker, etc. 1971) reported that maintaining cognitive consistency, rather than protecting a private self-concept, is how a person protects their public self-image.[86]Moreover, the results reported in the study I'm No Longer Torn After Choice: How Explicit Choices Implicitly Shape Preferences of Odors (2010) contradict such an explanation, by showing the occurrence of revaluation of material items, after the person chose and decided, even after having forgotten the choice.[87]
There’s a lot more to cognitive dissonance, but I digress and I am sure you see how this is a very handy tool in sowing fields and polluting rivers full of hate.
Now let’s get back to hate mongers and how they used cognitive dissonance to grow huge toxic waste pits of fetid, stinking hate. That is because hate is a natural malodorous waste product of thinking. A normal healthy human being is supposed to poop it out, not eat it. But that is what hate mongers know how to do. They know how to make people eat their own shit.
Calculating Hate: Here’s How Hitler Did It — Hitler’s Ignis Fatuus
Let’s define Ignis Fatuus so you know what I’m talking about:
Ignis Fatuus is a mid 16th century word. It originate from modern Latin speakers amd literally means โfoolish fireโ (because of its erratic movement). It has evolved to mean: something deceptive or deluding.
This definition and images come from Oxford Languages Dictionary. I kind of like Foolish Fire! And I think men like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Putin (some of the biggest killers) like it too! It's like possessing the power of Dark Magic, knowing how to get people to believe Foolish Pipe Dreams... stuff men like Hitler can say, knowing he will never, ever deliver on the promises he is making to the masses. They are illusions, delusions, nightmares cloaked by glitter and sickening charm.
So back to Hitler’s ignis fatuus. He was part of a great body of people who just suffered a huge lost. This big lost was due partly to a style of self-inflated vanity, stubbornness, snobbishness, and stupidity corrupting the German hierarchy, which led to a massive miscalculation that lost the war.
All Quiet on the Western Front | Official Teaser | Netflix
The war Germany lost was WWI. And they were punished by the victors, and rightly so, but like Carolyn Bryant and lots of White people who used to make lots of money using slave labor, some of the German people were sore losers.
Among these sore losers was Hitler.
Let me be very clear, not everyone who experiences trauma or crisis ends up becoming a sore loser. In fact, the vast majority of people do not, many even grow stronger and get even better at accepting and assimilating reality.
But there is also a percentage who don’t grow or can’t grow. This is who I am talking about here, Germans who could not accept and assimilate that they were wrong, they lost, they needed to change.
Among this group of sore losers is Hitler: a roguish, impish, and deceitfully deluded man as well as brash and brazen. He captivates just enough sore losers to gain some traction. One he got a little power, he leveraged it to get more.
Then, many more Germans flocked to him like some new, exciting lover. Not all, of course, many Germans were afraid and for good reason.
Hitler understood all this, and manipulate everyone to leverage even more power. One way he galvanized public support was creating a good foil/a scape goat. Hitler attacked the Jews and mongrels. He was going to make the world pure again.
This fantasy was the cornerstone of his convoluted ignis fatuss and the disaffected Germans fell for it–hook, line, and sinker.
Adolf Hitler came to power with the goal of establishing a new racial order in Europe dominated by the German โmaster race. -- United State Holocaust Memorial Museum -- 9/20/19
Adolf Hitler and the Nazis believed that the world was divided into distinct races. According to the Nazis, each race had its own traits. These ... -- Nazi Racism | Holocaust Encyclopedia -- 12/15/22
Hitler’s Plans for the World if He Won
Adolf Hitler Speech in 1935
Calculating Hate:Stalin’s Ignis Fatuus
Stalin’s ignis fatuus is similar, but he rode to power on the back of Lenin and the Russian Revolution, a wave that was sweeping across the world. It was a backlash to rapid industrialization and the ridiculous amount of power and wealth landing up in the hands of a very few; the rich, evil capitalists! See a pattern here?
Stalin carefully calculated his chances to take control of this great wave. When his chance came, he took it with tremendous ruthlessness–killing every rival in his party without mercy.
His passion for control mutated him into one of the world’s biggest control freaks. Russia still suffers to this very day from the devastation Stalin wrought. He is the very reason why Putin now controls Russia. Putin is imitating Stalin to a tee. Putin is pushing his foolish vision of a Great Russia once again on his poor, demoralized, broken, diminished people. They are so because Stalin killed so freaken many enlightened, differently thinking Russians.
Stalin's โrevolution from aboveโ sought to build socialism by means of forced collectivization and industrialization, programs that entailed tremendous human ... -- Library of Congress
Starting in the late 1920s, Joseph Stalin launched a series of five-year plans intended to transform the Soviet Union from a peasant society into an industrial ... -- History Channel
Terrifying Story Of Joseph Stalin’s Rise to Power
A Day in The Life of a Dictator: Joseph Stalin
"Once he decided to attain absolute power, he would never relinquish it," observes Alexandre Allilouiev, nephew of Joseph Stalin. "He was a monster." In order to achieve his goals, Stalin set about re-imaging the vast empire in his own image, which included the extermination of all those who dared oppose or refused to adhere to his ideology. The film follows the activities of Stalin on November 24, 1938 - a crucial day that set in motion the end of his Great Purge. -- A Day in the Life of a Dictator: Joseph Stalin
He believes he's been chosen by providence to create the ideal socialist, communists society. To do this, he must destroy everything to recreate it. He puts into action a scientific, systematic plan to purge unwanted peoples of Russia. - A Day in the Life of a Dictator: Joseph Stalin
Calculating Hate:Pol Pot’s Ignis Fatuus
Another brutal killer who cloaked his ugly shit under the same auspices of the Russian Revolution, the backlash to a rapidly changing, globalized world. Lots of people longed to go back to the old ways, the old life, the idealized past. And, this is what Pol Pot sold bundled up with with a lot of hate.
The Khmer Rouge, organized by Pol Pot in the Cambodian jungle in the 1960s, advocated a radical Communist revolution that would wipe out Western influences in Cambodia and set up a solely agrarian society. -- History Channel -- Jan 7
Pol Pot wished to create a state focused on their rural idyll, with all citizens pledging loyalty in a way which prohibited all ... -- Holocaust Memorial Day Trust
Pol Pot's objective was to construct a classless, communal and self-sufficient Kampuchea, unspoiled by foreign influences, intellectualism and ... -- Alpha History -- 9/12/20
In 1960, a small group of Cambodians, led by Saloth Sar (later known as Pol Pot) and Nuon Chea, secretly formed the Communist Party of Kampuchea. -- United State Holocaust Memorial Museum
The party's aim was to establish a classless communist state based on a rural agrarian economy and a complete rejection of the free market and ... -- Al Jazeera -- 2/3/12
Worldโs Most Murderous Dictator Pol Pot
Calculating Hate:Mao Zedong’s Ignis Fatuus
Moa Zedong also rode the Red Wave. He also sold an idealized, backwards looking China who would vanquish all the evil Capitalists and live happily ever after! Xi Jinping is riding on the back of Mao now.
Mao and his communist supporters had been fighting against what they claimed was a corrupt and decadent Nationalist government in China since the 1920s. Despite massive U.S. support for the Nationalist regime, Maoโs forces were victorious in 1949 and drove the Nationalist government onto the island of Taiwan. In September, with cannons firing salutes and ceremonial flags waving, Mao announced the victory of communism in China and vowed to establish the constitutional and governmental framework to protect the โpeopleโs revolution.โ -- Mao Zedong outlines the new Chinese government
Cultural Revolution: Mao believed that this would ultimately create a new society where there was no gap between urban and rural, laborers and intellectuals. What are some of the ... -- University of Washington
Communism, Capitalism, and Democracy in China: Mao wanted to eliminate capitalism and its emphasis on property rights, profits, and free-market competition. He followed the ideas of Karl Marx, who envisioned ... -- Constitutional Rights Foundation
Moa Zedong was willing to kill to make his dream a reality. He was willing to kill lots of people, and he did.
Why Mao Zedong Was The Most Brutal Tyrant
Calculating Hate:Putin’s Ignis Fatuus
Let’s play a different game with Putin! Let’s pretend he had an ideal childhood and experienced lots of love growing up and was surrounded by peace-loving, Earth-loving Russians. Perhaps the descendants of people Stalin was trying to kill but missed. This Putin is a happy, pot-smoking hippy!
Young Putin | 1967 Peace Rally on the Red Square
Yes! Before Putin was a KGB agent and mass murder, he was a happy, happy hippy!
What nice eyes this young, happy, hippy Putin has!
If only we could have this Putin back!
But sadly yes, this is a deepfake. It is made with AI. I saw an interview with the man who is making AI deep fakes, but he’s hiding, so I can’t share it.
Calculating Hate:Collective Hate
Collective Hate rises from inside each and every individual. It is the collective accounting of grievances and wrongsevery civilizations harbors, especially if they have been around for a long time. All civilizations go up and go down; the stock market goes up and down; all people’s lives go up and down; all living beings experience ups and downs… that is called being alive.
Hate attempts to grab hold of only one side of the wave. Haters only want to exist on the up part of the wave (the up and up, we’re going up, we’re on the rise).
But in order to do this, reality must be split into Good and Evil. Hate mongers step into the Good Fairy Bubble and spew the Evil they have cut off from themselves on everyone else.
They know the ordinary man and women are afraid of their own shadows. Of course they know this because most modern societies and civilizations teach people to be afraid of their own shadows!
Hate-filled fear mongers tap into this pervasive fear and anxiety that plagues pretty much ever human living in a civilization. They tell people how unfair the world is treating them. They get them really good and frighten about all the things coming to ‘get them like the boogeyman‘, and then tell them that the Evil Others did this to them. Then they tell them that they better fight like Hell to keep their lives the way they want it and get their fair share.
Really, what hate-filled fear mongers are really doing is getting people to eat their own shit. If there are people who don’t do as they are told, and if the hate-filled fear monger has power, the disobedient people are killed.
“Do as you are told or else!” — the hate-filled fear monger cries
This is a tale as old as time, which for human beings living in civilizations is about 5,000 years that when all this hate and fear and more hate and more fear really started to grow. You’ll have to read my book on why this is so.
But in the meantime, do we really want to live a world ruled by Shitty Ideas and Foolish Fires?!
I found this song entirely by accident. I love putting together ugly images with beautiful music. And this one matched better than I could ever have intended!
Lyrics by Musixmatch
You always do this stuff We’ll never be enough You were floating in the life We were floating in the life It’s in your eyes [Hate lives in the eyes]
You think that’s not fun, the day is done With no other feelings Just why are your eyes not shining in lights? [Hate shuts down life… the shining lights of life] There’s more than one meaning Just get what you want, but again you got numb, [Greed feds Hate] It’s because of freaking illusion [Hate grows in Foolish Fantasies, delusions, and illusions] That life is not fiction, the sense in the description of love, [Life is wiggly… it goes up and down… fiction tries to make life all up all the time… that’s a lie] It’s an awful conclusion [No one likes to admit they have to poop and pee, but it is true — the origins of Shame another great catalyst of Hate]
You could always turn it back [Yes, turning back is always such a great idea! Look where we are as a world in the year 2023! It’s so Great!! Let’s do more turning backwards!] Get another heart attack [Let’s see… there is the Putin heart attack, Xi Jinping heart attack, Trump heart attack… should I go on?!!!] We roll! We’ll find ourselves in love
Oh fuck… [Yep… we are pretty much fucked as a species due to our propensity to engage in Foolish Fantasies]
This story had a deep and lasting impact on me. I was a child when it came out. I loved it the most of all the Dr. Seuss books. But it also troubled me. It felt very different from The Cat In the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, or Oh the Places You’ll Go.
It felt like a puzzle that needed to be solved and time was running out!
I felt that the one word the Lorax leaves behind for the greedy, old Once-ler was the key to solving the puzzle! But, what does it mean? Unless…what?!!
Dr. Seuss tells us what the Once-ler thinks Unless means at the end of the story. The Once-ler thinks that unless someone like the boy cares a whole lot, the world will never change.
It seems so simple. Surely, I felt as a child, there are bunches of children just like me reading this book and understand the message and will care enough. Surely, we the kids of the 70s get it, and when we grow up, we will change the world and avoid catastrophe.
But, we didn’t. Here we all are, 52 years later, and the world has not changed course. It remains fixed on the same course that it was on back in the 70s when Seuss first published The Lorax. In fact, it feels that we are all speeding ever faster… and to what? The End?
Clearly, the Lorax means something entirely different in his silent message he leave to the selfish, self-absorbed Once-ler. Clearly, Unless means something different than what the Once-ler thinks. But what? What do we need to do as humans to avert total disaster… perhaps even the end of the world as we know it now?
The young Once-ler arrives in the forest where the lovely Truffula Trees look like lollipops and the cute fuzzy Bar-ba-loots bears play alongside the beautiful Swomee-Swans birds and lovely humming fish!
But instead of seeing the incredible beauty all around him, the young Once-ler cuts down one of the incredible Truffula Trees and makes a Thneed!
What really?! A Thneed… this is the thing that everyone needs!
Dr. Seuss uses the Thneed as a symbol for the modern world’s obsession with fossil fuels. And Seuss is certainly right about this, gas-fuel-oil is truly something everyone needs in the world we have made.
There are lots of Once-lers in the modern world making millions and billions of dollars harvesting fossil fuels for all the things we need in our slick, fast-paced modern world!
"I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.And I'm asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs" โhe was very upset as he shouted and puffed โ"What's that THING you've made out of my Truffula tuft?"
But there’s no stopping the happy young Once-ler. He cuts and chops and build a factory to make even more Thneeds! And then the Lorax is forced to come back and to tell him this:
'I'm the Lorax who speaks for the trees which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please. But I'm also in charge of the Brown Bar-ba-loots who played in the shade in their Bar-ba-loots suits and happily lived, eating Truffula Fruits.'
Soon, the Lorax comes back with another dire message telling the Once-ler:
"Once-ler!You're making such smogulous smoke!My poor Swomee-Swans...why, they can't sing a note!No one can sing who has smog in his throat."
Unless….Image from: Final #PostABird fact for #BlackBirdersWeek Day 2. Do you know why the Lorax sends the Swomee-Swans away? Because there is too much smogulous smoke. | Twitter
The Once-ler shrugs and continues chopping down the beautiful Truffula Trees and making a Thneeds.
The Lorax returns again. Now it is the Humming-Fish who can no longer hum.
This time the Once-ler gets mad and shouts:
'Now listen here, Dad! All you do is yap-yap and say, 'Bad! Bad! Bad! Bad!' Well, I have my rights sir, and I'm telling you I intend to go on doing just what I do! And, for your information, you Lorax, I'm figgering on biggering and biggering and biggering and biggering, turning MORE Truffual Trees into Thneeds which everyone, EVERYONE, EVERYONE needs!'
Not long after this the Lorax does the thing that sticks in my mind and haunts me to this day. He builds a small platform underneath the Once-ler’s factory, waits for the Once-ler to look out, then without a word, the Lorax picks up the seat of his pants and flies away disappearing through the last blue hole in the polluted, ugly sky… and that is that… Unless...
But, it hasn’t worked. Hope is not enough. To fix this mess, it take action.
Are We Even Capable of Changing Our Fate?
Do we really need to destroy our planet before we care enough about it to fix it?
I know, I know, the seed the Once-ler throws down to the boy is a symbol of hope and we all need hope to Do The Right Thing. But quite honestly, do we really know what the right thing is that we should be doing?
And nature will do just fine after humans are gone. Kind of like 2067, an Australian SciFi film, where that is exactly what happens.
Unless…. 2067 – Official Trailer
Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Ryan Kwanten Writer/Director: Seth Larney By the year 2067, Earth has been ravaged by climate change and humanity is forced to live on artificial oxygen. An illness caused by the synthetic O2 is killing the worldsโ population and the only hope for a cure comes in the form of a message from the future: โSend Ethan Whyteโ. Ethan, an underground tunnel worker, is suddenly thrust into a terrifying new world full of unknown danger as he must fight to save the human race.
I think the Lorax is telling us something else. I think the Lorax is warning us about ourselves and that Unless we learn how to let go of bad ideas, we are doomed to create the world we are speeding ever faster towards making. The one that will kill us.
What Is the Lorax Warning UsAbout Ourselves?
I think it is Shame; toxic shame to be specific.
Shame is an emotion of civilizations. We feel shame, and it is necessary to feel it. Feeling ashamed motivates us to improve ourselves. It motivates us to take care of the people around us, so that we to treat them with kindness, dignity, and respect.
No one wants to feel shame. Of all human emotions, shame is perhaps the hardest one to endure. Because of this, it is one of the scariest, most loathed, most feared emotion in our human tool box.
If shame had a color it would be the color of pee. Listen to Snap Judgement, and you’ll understand.
Actress Diona Reasonover was on the brink of her big break. But she never expected it to happen while she was on her vacation.
Diona Reasonover is an actress who lives in LA, you can check out her writing on โI Love You Americaโ with Sarah Silverman on Hulu.
Produced by Adizah Eghan
Note: Diona had a knee injury and could not make it to the bathroom on the plane before others beat her to it. Then, the plane begins to descend and the flight attendant not very understanding. So you’ll need to listen to how Diona solves her dilemma.
The episode before this one is worth a listen too: Date With The Devil. This one touches on the topic of how ee always hear about the people who survive a disaster and who often give credit Jesus or God for their good fortune, but we never hear about the people who made the exact same calculations, believe just as much in a higher power, but ended up dead.
I think we have become a bit lopsided in thinking about our survival as individuals and as a species when we hear only miraculous stories of good fortune, good luck, or good timing that allows a person to avert a tragedy.
But what about the people who don’t avert disaster? What about the people who get killed?
D. Parvaz touches on this in a very different story. It is a scary, tormented, horrifying, heart-wrenching story about people (through no fault of their own) do not make it. Indeed, they are murdered by monsters. That’s what humans become when they don’t digest and assimilate all of who they are as a human being. This means seeing the good in one’s self as well as the bad in one’s self. And yes, shame is one of those things.
People who refuse to feel their shame, fear, guilty, or whatever makes them uncomfortable will project them onto other people. People who don’t feel shame will do shameful things, horrendous things. They are no longer human because they have thrown half of who they are away.
So, don’t thrown your shame away! You need it. You really, really do… and the Lorax understood how desperately humans need to feel shame and other parts of themselves that make them truly capable of being human.
John Amodeo (a psychotherapist for over 40 years) describes that how not dealing with our feelings of shame there are far-reaching, destructive consequences.
He says, “When shame lurks outside of our awareness, it can become the driving force behind the destructive rage, blame, and violence that is damaging our world.”
Have you ever encountered someone who is boiling with a seething rage bubbling just under their human-looking skin but really what is lurking underneath is a monster ready to explode at the drop of a pin?
A teenage honor student who knocked on the wrong door was shot.
Cheerleaders who accidentally opened the wrong door of a car late at night are shot.
Teenagers who pulled into the wrong driveway and were turning around were shot, one died.
Children playing basketball and their ball rolls into a neighbors lawn are shot at, one father lost a lung after getting shot in the back.
Amodeo describes shame as the felt sense of being defective and inadequate: “it as an โintensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.โ
Shame has also been defined by Gerhsen Kaufman as a breaking of the interpersonal bridge. As human beings wired for connection, we dread isolation. Children fail to thrive when they donโt feel a safe and secure connection with caregivers. When healthy attachment is ruptured, a child feels unworthy of love and acceptance. This unbearable shame can lead to a mad scramble to prove our worth in distorted ways that often dehumanize others.
In a 2016 article, shame expert Bret Lyon, who leads Healing Shame trainings, describes how intolerable shame can be transferred to others:
โDriven by the need to keep the feelings of shame at bay and away from themselves, people can exult in their contempt and cynicismโfinding a curious kind of gratification in itโฆ In extreme cases, runaway contempt can cause people to lose sight of another’s humanity. Even their right to exist. This has led to extreme behavior, in Germany and many other places.โ
Amodeo drives home the point of toxic shame, the very same one that I think the Lorax is trying to drive home to us with his message Unless. Amodeo writes:
When the drive toward personal โsuccessโ or being superior becomes dissociated from our humanity, we seek gratification in ways that will never really satisfy us. We become disconnected from our souls, as our innate longing for love and connection curdles into a desire for status, money, or power. These substitute ways to seek gratification often spiral out of controlโtaking us on a perilous journey away from our fellow humansโand away from our true selves. This desire for a narrow self-gratification overlooks the reality that we are inescapably interconnected.
We can observe this shame-driven dynamic in our fraught politics, where looking good replaces being good (truly caring about others). We can see it in political and business leaders competing to amass the greatest wealth and power, which often translates into a race to see who can be the most contemptuous and divisive.
Some political leadersโand followers who relish the thrill of belonging to a group that has special knowledge and that is superior to othersโhave so thoroughly dissociated from their vulnerability, their humanity,their hearts, and their souls, that they have no compunction to deny the rights of others, or, as we've seen in Ukraine and elsewhere, committing atrocities without any healthy shame to check their behavior.
Unless….The Big Choice
So… what are we going to do? Are we going to save our beautiful world full of life or are we all going to drown in a Yellow Sea of Seething Shame?
This is a job that requires every person on the planet to do. Every living individual needs to claim their shame and proclaim proudly: “I am human! I do stupid things! I learn from them! I become a better human because I use my shame to grow!”
Or, you can lock yourself inside a dilapidated husk of what used to be your humanity… deny your shame, cast it onto everyone else around you as you fake being a perfect human being.
But, your performance is nothing more than a rickety, glittery, shiny shell of who you used to be. Inside there is nothing to balance you out and make you human. You have become hollow; a garden hose flowing with seething shame disguised as rage.
On A Related Note
My college roommate from College of the Atlantic shared this story. It is closely related to the responsibility of each and every person to do the invisible work of sustaining and maintaining psychological as well as social health, which takes daily work.
Kicked out of the university lecture
Subject: Legal studies.
First lecture.
The professor enters the lecture hall.He looks around.
"You there in the 8th row. Can you tell me your name?" he asks a student.
"My name is Sandra" says a voice.
The professor asks her, "Please leave my lecture hall. I don't want to see you in my lecture."
Everyone is quiet. The student is irritated, slowly packs her things and stands up.
"Faster please" she is asked.
She doesn't dare to say anything and leaves the lecture hall.
The professor keeps looking around.
The participants are scared.
"Why are there laws?" he asks the group.
All quiet. Everyone looks at the others.
"What are laws for?" he asks again.
"Social order" is heard from a row
A student says "To protect a person's personal rights."
Another says "So that you can rely on the state."
The professor is not satisfied.
"Justice" calls out a student.
The professor smiling. She has his attention.
"Thank you very much. Did I behave unfairly towards your classmate earlier?"
Everyone nods.
"Indeed I did. Why didn't anyone protest?
Why didn't any of you try to stop me?
Why didn't you want to prevent this injustice?" he asks.
Nobody answers.
"What you just learned you wouldn't have understood in 1,000 hours of lectures if you hadn't lived it. You didn't say anything just because you weren't affected yourself. This attitude speaks against you and against life. You think as long as it doesn't concern you, it's none of your business. I'm telling you, if you don't say anything today and don't bring about justice, then one day you too will experience injustice and no one will stand before you. Justice lives through us all. We have to fight for it."
โIn life and at work, we often live next to each other instead of with each other. We console ourselves that the problems of others are none of our business. We go home and are glad that we were spared. But it's also about standing up for others. Every day an injustice happens in business, in sports or on the tram. Relying on someone to sort it out is not enough. It is our duty to be there for others. Speaking for others when they cannot.โ
-- Shared by Liza Hall -- 12/4/22
Postscript from 2026: Unless Still Means Us
In , the word unless always felt suspended in airโsmall, fragile, almost weightless. But it was never passive. It was a hinge. A turning point. A warning that the future was not fixed yet.
From the vantage point of 2026, that single word feels heavier.
We live now in a world where the warnings are no longer abstract. The fires are larger. The floods come faster. Oceans warm. Insurance systems crack. Crops fail under heat, drought, and instability. Entire communities are pushed from the places that once held them. What scientists once described as projections increasingly arrive as headlines, emergency declarations, and ordinary disruption woven into everyday life.
The tragedy is not that humanity did not know.
We knew.
For decades we knew.
Scientists warned. Indigenous communities warned. Farmers, ecologists, climatologists, coastal planners, and young people filling streets all warned. The danger was mapped, measured, graphed, and published. Yet too much political leadership remained captive to short election cycles, fossil-fuel interests, private wealth, power games, and the machinery of denial.
And now, with Trump back in office, the old machinery of denial has not merely returnedโit has hardened. Climate policy is weakened precisely when acceleration is required. Public institutions that should be preparing societies for resilience are instead distracted by ideological warfare, deregulation, and the protection of concentrated wealth. The cost is not theoretical. It is already being paid in displacement, instability, and lives.
That is what makes unless feel so urgent now.
Many people ask the hardest question: is it too late?
The honest answer is this: it is too late to prevent all damage. That threshold is behind us.
But it is not too late to determine how much worse it becomes.
That distinction matters.
Too often people imagine climate change as a single cliff. In reality it is a steepening slope. Every fraction of a degree matters. Every forest protected matters. Every wetland restored matters. Every city redesigned for resilience matters. Every election, every law, every local decision, every refusal to normalize organized denial still matters.
There is no magical point where responsibility disappears.
In that story, humanity ignores the warning signs of now. It delays. Rationalizes. Protects immediate profit over long-term survival. It does almost nothing meaningful about climate change until the planet passes what I call The Fall.
Then the consequences come not as one singular apocalypse, but as cascading systems failure.
Storm after storm. Fire after fire. Crop collapse. Economic destabilization. Infrastructure breakdown. Migration pressure. Insurance failure. National bankruptcy.
One disaster arrives before recovery from the last is possible.
In Sapience, nation-states become too weak, too indebted, and too overwhelmed to protect their populations. The only institutions large enough to absorb the wreckage are multinational corporations. The world fractures into corporate states governed not by citizenship but by balance sheets. Human beings become labor inputs, liabilities, and managed assets.
That future is fiction.
But its architecture is already visible.
When public institutions fail to protect the common good, private power fills the vacuum.
When governments abandon long-range stewardship, markets do not become moral by themselves.
When societies normalize ecological reality as merely another quarterly calculation, the bottom line eventually becomes civilization itself.
That is why unless matters more now than when I first wrote this post.
The word was never about certainty. It was about responsibility.
Unless people care enough to resist.
Unless enough citizens refuse denial.
Unless enough communities build resilience faster than collapse spreads.
Unless we remember that democracy, ecological stability, and shared reality are not permanent inheritances. They survive only when defended.
The deeper danger in 2026 may not be climate denial alone. It may be climate fatalismโthe seductive belief that because we failed to act early, action now no longer matters.
That is wrong.
Fatalism is only denial wearing darker clothes.
The future has narrowed, yes. But it has not disappeared.
And that means the Lorax still speaks to us.
Not as a childโs story.
As a civic warning.
As moral instruction.
As political truth.
As survival.
โUnless.โ
The word remains unfinished because we are the ones meant to finish it.
Unless….Feature Archetypal Animation
Music:How Bad Can I Be (From “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax”) — Geek Music
