Shall I begin again?

>TAPS MIC<   

Is this thing on? 

The United States was built on rich people and slavery and has flirted with full-on fascism and Nazi movements through its history; these cherries sit on top of its free-market capitalism and institutional racism. The US has a recorded history of concentration camps, and today the leading republican presidential candidate wants to create new ones for homeless people so that people who will never visit the cities they see as bloodbaths (they're not) feel better about themselves and where they live. 

We were on the right track after WWII and the winds of the Civil Rights era, but we're losing it now. 

It's all just so loud right now: State-supported racism, removing existing rights and health care of women, the anti-semitism, xenophobia, religion-as-law, gerrymandering & restricting voting rights, the police violence, "if you see something, say something", the killing of black men and women, the arming up of society with the blessings & encouragement of the police and politicians, the things that kids have to train for to stay alive at school, the ongoing pandemic where you have to go back to work in person but the wealthy have closed doors and clean rooms to work in, the stoked fears of your newest neighbors moving into the neighborhood, the months needed to access regular health care because so many HC workers have died or resigned or been fired, the self-regulation of the food industry leading to animal abuse, salmonella salads, and e-coli delights at the meat & dairy counter.

The increased costs of groceries, housing, and transportation. The unregulated size and weight of those menacing pickup trucks and the too-heavy weights of the replacement electric versions. 

The Republican politicians repeatedly stating that they're at war. Republican state governments easing child labor laws and codifying underaged marriages a/k/a rape, and starving public schools by allowing vouchers to pay for private and for-profit charter schools and putting poor kids into financial lunch-debt. 

The imbalance between the top and the bottom is now just about unsustainable. We are serfs again, we're subjects to the crown. We hate so many of each other. It's so fkg sad. 

All during a time when the ecology and the governments in many places are starting to collapse, when millions of people will need the more fortunate of us to "be their brothers' keepers" which we probably won't because see the last few paragraphs. 

People can still find their own individual happiness in the world. It's not hard, and it's easy to look away to "enjoy your life" right now if you only have to work one job and don't pay attention.

This moment in time feels like the Roaring 20's when just enough people could afford to smoke, drink, do drugs, have plenty, go places, and do things. Women cut their hair, got the right to vote, cars were fun toys, and everyone danced the night away in flapper dresses and suits in the jazz clubs of days gone by. That's us in our blue jeans at those concerts by the lake or the corporate-owned music venues, or the stadiums filled with thousands paying extortionate ticket prices. That's us on our long-haul flights, prepared, but deciding "Do I mask up or not? No one else is so it must be safe!"

It's a damn shame that humanity as a whole loses its lessons every 80-100 years since the last pandemic eased its grip, or when the fighters who rescued us from evil the last time have all passed away. 

If you made it this far, click the photos and read the captions. We're not far off. That's the 1930s, about 85-90 years ago. Most of them and the soldiers of WWII are dead. We're at these moments again. We're doing what Europe and the USA did at the start of the 15 or so years leading up to the beginnings of The Holocaust. I'm sure it's OK and I'm over-reacting.