I don't even know what thread to put shit in anymore.
I've been reading about that Couer d'Alene, Idaho story where the 31 members of "Patriot Front" were apparently ready to crack a bunch of heads at a Pride parade. Apparently, they were one hotel clerk away from making some dark shit happen. Eventually, shots are going to be fired.
It feels like it's only a matter of time before one of these things goes off. There have been all these near misses since January 6, 2021. Feels like one will slip through and then these people will be empowered, and it'll be like mass shootings. Just riots and right v left street fighting all the time. Living in the heart of Trump country doesn't give me hope that there's more rational minded people out there than right wing sovereign citizens ready to tear the whole thing down to "own the libs."
Scary shit all over.
This has become the theme of EVERY Star Trek spin-off. The NuTrek premise is that the 21st century collapse starts with "the second civil war" (here every spin off has been glad to recycle January 6th and BLM footage) which then led to KHHHAAANNNNN!!!! which then led to World War III and the apocalypse.
The thing is... It really does feel like that. And, to be honest, it's felt like that ever since the day after 9/11 when there were tanks on the street corners in DC and we never quite looked back at what the world was before someone finally punched us and we decided to start a Forever War with the world and ourselves.
Hell, to be honest, it all started with our reaction to AIDS and the Iran-Contra deal to dump drugs into minority communities.
Hell, to be honest, it all started when we gunned down protestors in Ohio.
Hell, to be honest...
Anyway, yes, this time around it's the sort of tension that's well-armed and not easily calmed. The Complex took care of the 60s revolution by simply homogenizing it, breaking it apart from the inside, and then selling it to the highest bidder. That revolution had every single fang removed and ended up sellng disco, sneakers, and then cell phones.
But that revolution came from the left. This one is coming from the right. And they aren't free love and dope, are they? They're AR-15s and a strange level of fear and hatred that has been quietly bred into us since 9/11. We've spent the last generation under attack or being the attacker on so many insidious under the skin levels. It's gotten to the point where I can understand how a truly broken mind and lost soul not only became so wounded and broken but can also see how an automatic weapon aimed at children may make more sense because at least it's the only honest thing in a world that's really become devoted to misinformation, half-truths, diversions, and hyper-medicated alternative realities.
What rattles my cage is the outrage. We're so fucking stupid aren't we? We're mad a bunch of kids got shot up and we demand that the gun laws change. That's like yelling at the rabbit for being eaten by the fox. The gun lobby is the problem. As long as there are people in Congress taking money from the gun lobby
nothing will change. We should be protesting lobby groups-- guns, cars, gas. We should be outside their buildings throwing rocks through their windows. And we should be voting out the mentally unfit greedmonsters taking that money.
RC, your point about being in Trump's America is something that really confuses me. I struggle to wrap my head around the political polarization. I know it's fed by the media and the politicians themselves because all of that has morphed into entertainment... But when a classroom full of third graders gets annihilated... Does it mater anymore? And how does that not turn the entire state instantly blue? I'm baffled at the lack of constructive outrage. Because, at this point, we all should be out there burning every fucking thing to the ground until change actually, really does happen.
