Do You Believe in Rock and Roll?
"We are living through a revolt against the future. The future will prevail." - Anand Giridharadas
I deleted my social media account that rhymes with Tase a Crook the other day, and I really wanted to talk about it in today’s musing but. . .
THE SKY IS FALLING!
White people voted for the dog whistler over the establishment guy in Virginia for governor and the national media is having a field day over how progressivism is dead and the Democrats have been set back a hundred years. The mainstream media is fascinated—once again—that “poorly” educated (I’m not saying they are not necessarily “educated”) white folks, who are easily duped under the best of circumstances, have voted—once again—for returning America to 1950.
America before the successes of the Civil Rights Movement.
America before integration.
America before Brown v the Board of Education.
America before bra-burning.
America before Roe v Wade was the law of the land.
America before Equal Opportunity Employment, Affirmative Action.
America before The Pill.
America before Medicare and Medicaid. (Whoa, whoa, whoa! That’s Third Rail stuff.)
An America that did not have to consider what pronoun to use.
An America that barely acknowledged homosexuals existed.
An America of sundown towns, dry counties and blue laws.
An America where you needed a ‘green book’ if you were a person of color traveling in the South.
An America that closed shop on Sundays, rolled up the sidewalks when the sun went down.
If not a homogenous America, an America where white folks knew—without a doubt—they sat atop the cultural caste system. White men in particular, but white women who derived their worth from a male as well.
The 1950s were uncomplicated. “Separate but equal” was the custom and everyone could laugh uproariously at black face histrionics without looking around to see who might notice. Women still needed a man to sign off on a bank account. Women were generally recognized by their husband’s first and last names.
It’s not a mystery what the MAGA folks long for. They want THAT America back. They want unquestioned fealty from everyone not white. ‘Not white persons’ they know are given a pass, maybe even given status, but woe be to you ‘not white unrecognizable persons’ once you get out into this reborn America—like after sundown—and the natives don’t know who you are. All bets are off at that point.
There’s a popular megachurch in Moscow, Idaho, where the pastor is actively seeking a theocracy. To hell with the Constitution! At least, to hell with it, when it’s inconvenient and unsuitable for me and my kind—god-fearing, mostly white folks! I’m sure there are other churches throughout the country similar to this one, or like the one where parishioners are encouraged to bring their automatic weapons to church.
There is only one scenario where the genie is pushed back into its bottle and it would entail a whole lot of bloodshed. People rant about a Civil War as if it would be something similar to the one that was fought in 1861 but it would be so much worse. It would be more like the genocide in Rwanda where your “enemies” were—literally—embedded everywhere.
I, too, want to return to happier days. I like 1950 for its tax structure and for its ‘polite society’. Even today, television, radio and printed news refrain from using certain expletives. Wait. Refrain isn’t the right word. They are PROHIBITED from using certain expletives. No one seems up in arms about that set of prohibitions.
So, here’s where I get to circle around to my personal social media excision.
Social media is not, in and of itself, evil. In fact, my social media accounts, due to my ‘milk dud personality’, determined curation, excellent choice of contacts and an extension called F.B. Purity, are blasé—with the exception of my occasional, self-administered, incendiary rants.
That is not—under any stretch of the imagination—the norm. Especially in some parts of the world where social media sites are some countries citizens’ portals to the worldwide web.
Social media, entertainment shows masquerading as news sites and news sites desperate for eyeballs—are poisoning the well of democracy. Poisoning the well of critical thinking. Poisoning the well of civil behavior.
We all know this is happening. (I just learned the other day that Latinos and Hispanics are being “targeted” by those intent upon spreading disinformation, misinformation and mal-information in regards to COVID and the usual conspiracy theories. Social media sites—if they are doing anything at all—are more likely to not be monitoring Spanish language sites as diligently.)
But no one knows what to do about it.
I think sites/platforms need to be liable for their content. I think the government needs to use a bigger stick to bring them to heel. (Onerous fines that can get the attention of tech companies will be necessary. Or, as Sacha Baron Cohen proposed on Kara Swisher’s podcast Sway, jail time for the CEOs.) I think it’s time to take off the kid gloves. I think the days of the Wild West online need to be over. I think the whole freedom of speech issue is a thorny mess but it—desperately—needs sorting out online.
You should not be able to casually issue death threats online without there being any consequence. You should not be able to incite violence without there being any consequence. Not on sites or platforms where you have an instant audience of millions.
At the least, permanent banning (aka de-platforming) would have a positive chilling effect. We have already witnessed the up side of removing the former cry baby and provocateur from his favorite social media playgrounds. By some estimates, almost 75% of the bullshit went away. For all we know, it was enough to tip the 2020 election.
The sky isn’t falling, by the way.
I read school boards across some midwest states were stiffening their spines over the ludicrous charges around schools teaching inflammatory theories.
I heard—since “The Great-cough, cough-Communicator”, Ronald Reagan—both Virginia AND New Jersey had always voted in opposition to the party in charge of the White House. Well, that didn’t happen this time. Democrats held onto the governorship in New Jersey.
I saw the Department of Justice brought down one of the largest crime families in the Northeast recently. You can follow what the DOJ is up to here: justice.gov
We’ve been through these societal convulsions periodically throughout our history. This time feels scarier to those of us who have spanned more than one of these convulsions because the 21st century ushered in the hyper-information age. For the moment, the bad actors are ahead of the game. They’ve taken advantage of the media.
The ‘black hats’ are ‘winning’. It often feels as if the idiots are running the asylum.
But—shockingly, at least today—I agree with Anand Giridharadas.
The future will prevail.
Blast from some of our pasts! Monica Lewinsky experienced internet trolls much, much earlier than most of us.
Also, interesting podcast about abandoning the idea of growth for growth sake. Think about it. How much longer can the human population grow in an exponential nature, especially if it’s a population hell bent on consuming meat to exist? The animals we eat already outweigh us by megatons.
Thanks for reading and sharing.
If it seems like I lost my train of thought writing this one, it’s because I did. I started writing it last Wednesday following the off-off year elections. I realized I should have written about Washington’s elections because, as it turned out, Tim Eyman was up to his usual electoral monkey-wrenching by putting up several initiatives related to taxation. I “sensed” it when I was voting because there were four initiatives on the ballot that were intent on overturning taxes our legislature had previously passed.
Automatic red flags in my book because the Washington Legislature leans blue.
Par for the course, our citizenry repealed them all because all you have to do is put the word “tax” in an initiative and voters are against it. It’s a Tim Eyman trick that has worked for decades.
To end on a positive note—if you loathe Tim Eyman’s tactics as much as I do—here’s a news story from four days ago about how the man is millions of dollars in arrears for previous campaign finance violations.
Womp womp.