This story is about many things, mostly though it’s a reaction of a human being to absurdity and a cry for heart’s truth. I am mixing politics and philosophy because I don’t know how else to do it.
It is with great frustration that I say this—but 2021 in America is a lot less fun than the 1990s in the post-Soviet space. Both are the times of societal restructuring and unprecedented, shameless robbery of everything by everyone who can. However, back then it felt like freedom, and right now it feels like a return to the Soviet Union—but without its security and its general communal warmth. It is as if the apparatchiks are openly protecting the robber barons, while we the people are asked to “wear a mask” and shut our eyes and speaking holes.
The other day, I actually went back and listened greedily to the old generation Soviet punks, the ones who were born into the never-ending television march toward the ever-postponed “bright future.” Their songs sounded like they were written in 2020. Every word about living inside a lie sounded like an adequate description of the present moment. I have never thought that I would be living through a time like this! Not in America! Life is so full of irony.
For clarity, let me define my politics again. Right now, I am politically homeless and disappointed in the entire spectacle.
Also, an important point: I respect my heart—and therefore, I don’t take sides in the battle of monsters and aliens.
When powerful leaders yell at each other on TV, I, for one, have no way of knowing to which extent it’s real, and to which extent it’s pro wrestling.
If we look at history, it is not uncommon for competing powerful citizens to angrily condemn each other in the media (including in the media they personally fund), and then, behind the scene, send each other sweet notes and party invitations—their respective children hanging out together at expensive palaces, and no one particularly caring about the peasants. For that, I highly recommend this book about DuPonts, it’s really good (and sorry about the Amazon link, it’s from my friend Mark Crispin Miller’s Forbidden Bookshelf).
And yes, occasionally kings try to kill each other, too—and when that happens, I stay out of it. The world is what it is. I am not invited to the royal parties, I don’t eat at their table, I am not a part of their circles—and when they fight, it’s their war, not mine! I am only one person in the world, and my mission has nothing to do with royalty.
A few times in my life, I’ve been excited about politicians, I cared deeply—and got disappointed, predictably. I’ve liked a couple of post-Soviet “rebels,” who ended up being thieves like the rest of them. Then I liked Obama when he first ran, then Sanders in 2016. Right or wrong I don’t know, that’s how I felt. Neither one delivered, and I stopped giving them my heart.
Intellectually, based on observations and research, I don’t believe America has a democracy, or genuinely honest presidential elections. I do think that the past elections were likely stolen—but I also think that a number of elections in the past were stolen, too, so… I feel a bit heartbroken about it right now because even the facade has fallen and the king is naked, and I love love love this land despite its imperfections—but then again, where I come from, there are no genuinely honest presidential elections, either, and life goes on. Welcome to the rest of humanity, I guess…
Now, the important battle. Currently we are facing a true existential danger coming from Big Tech, Big Biotech, their partners in the military, and their servants in the government, regardless of their political affiliation. Alas, I cannot name a president or a popular presidential candidate who hasn’t been collaborating with very wealthy people who are, in turn, hellbent on turning all of us into serfs. Obama was in bed with Google. Trump went “Operation Warp Speed,” packed with the military crooks. Yang wants a vac…n passport. Biden is all, #BuildBackBetter. Like, seriously, WTF, all of them. So it’s just us. We are on our own, and we only have our hearts to lead us. Perhaps, it’s always been this way, and now it’s just more visible. Perhaps, it’s an opportunity to finally find our hearts because it is the only source of light in the midst of darkness.
As far as Trump, at the risk of pissing everybody off, I think (sincerely) that he has been a pretty standard president with average horrible foreign policies and an average lack of care of the people. Some things he said made sense, some didn’t—but actions speak louder than words, and what he did was more of the same. He is loud-mouthed, yes, and he seems to openly dislike the poor, but all the others dislike the poor, too, they just don’t say it. The whole “kids in cages” business started before Trump. He talked and talked about cutting welfare—but hey, guess who cut Medicaid at the height of the COVID situation in New York (while simultaneously sending patients with COVID to nursing homes and killing many—and later writing a whole book about own greatness)? Um, Cuomo. In fact, I think that Trump and Cuomo are pretty similar in many ways—but the media made a Hitler out of Trump and a hero out of Cuomo. Cui bono?
Speaking of, the way the media has been portraying Trump has been abysmal—and I am saying this as someone who is not a Trump supporter and who criticized him before it became a thing, based on his role (yes, for real!) in the “success guru” circles. Thus, I am convinced that if the media didn’t make a Hitler out of him, no one would have been crying when he was elected, no one would have spent the past four years frothing at their mouths and shitposting like an outraged machine, and everybody would have been going about their lives in a usual complacent manner. Well, if not for the economy, that is…
Historically, middle class Americans have been minding their business and not worrying too much about the injustices that didn’t touch them. In some ways, it’s natural behavior for a human being who has an easy life with few existential challenges. What’s changed in the recent years, however, is not Trump’s advent—but the fact that the traditional American financial security went poof—which of course is a much deeper issue. The economy has been in decline—gig economy is no replacement for the security of the past—debt has been piling up, Big Tech has been “disrupting” everything in sight, and our aspiring overlords have been quietly planning a massive restructuring of life as we know it. Thus, Trump or not, the bubble was going to burst.
Now, I have a proprietary conspiracy theory, and I want to stress that it’s a theory, not an “official statement.” My “official statement” is, I have no idea, it’s impossible to know what’s in another person’s head. I don’t know whether or not Trump’s mission was to distract the audience, melt the brains of the “educated class”—in collaboration with the media—and to create high quality performance art while the real owners of the world are setting up the trap. At some point, I made a joke that Trump was an MC on the Titanic, and now I am thinking whether it really was a joke.
But then again, I have no way of knowing the real relationship between Trump and the more traditional establishment talking heads. Plus, life is complex, people change their minds, and lots of things are a dance of subjectivity. I have no idea what the deal was when he decided to run, how the higher powers allowed him to win, and what exactly is happening right now.
But what I know is that the “coup” in DC had every quality of a media event, designed to increase the amount of froth at the mouths of the “educated people” and to create a “reason” for an even further tightening of the peasants’ belts. I mean, please. America is a country with the strongest military in the world. And just like that, a few angry guys were able to break in and… what, take selfies? Like seriously, what was going to happen? How were they going to “overthrow the democracy”? And I am not even commenting on what exactly happened because I don’t know. All I know is that it smells like a media event, it walks like a media event, it talks like a media event… so perhaps it was a media event.
And now we have more censorship, and my people on the left are asking for more of it.
In what world!!!!!!
It also seems like Trump might have been “used” by whoever runs the spectacle—all sorts of alphabets—in the same manner they have been historically using foreign leaders during regime change operations. You know the plot: Install a leader for a purpose, apply the pressure, squeeze everything they want, and then remove. When in the land of the betrayers…
But again, I have no way of knowing if my theory is correct, and it if is, it is a battle of kings, and my task is protect my body and my soul. I am not in their game. I am not benefiting from their game, and it is not my job to love any of them.
But I feel so much sadness in my heart over watching the country I have adopted as my homeland self-destruct under the very force that elevated it to power: love of being in control of everything.
I have a dream…
I keep hoping that the “constitution” people finally connect to the indigenous and realize that the freedom we crave today as human beings is the same freedom that was taken away from the original people of this land. That they deserved respect and dignity just like we deserve it today. That the invasion of the missionaries of Biotech is very similar to the invasion of the missionaries of the past. I keep hoping that this happens, and that it triggers a beautiful chemical reaction of healing and new beginnings, and that “solutions” will show up from praying together to the mystery of life.
I keep hoping… I don’t know what I am doing but love beauty, and I want the world to heal.
Thanks Tessa. Same feeling. Feeling so heavy right now.
https://www.johndayblog.com/2021/01/toiling-together.html
When I was working at the Pinon clinic on the Navajo reservation, in 1991, somebody rushed in and called for me to "come quick, a lady has been shot". I rushed down the dirt street to see a middle aged Navajo woman's head and shoulders on the ground and her bottom and feet up in the passenger side of the open truck. I pulled her out onto the dirt and stabilized her head and airway. She breathed.
A hysterical white lady was praising God, "She's Alive! Praise God!"
The woman had been shot in the right eye and the bullet came out the back of her head. Her heart was beating.
Her breathing became deeper, more gasping, periodic, then occasional gasps, then no more.
Her pulse weakened, then trailed off.
A Young Navajo man wanted to do CPR. I said, "no, she just herniated her brainstem. She's dead."
EMS arrived and I declared her dead.
I walked back with dusty trousers to finish seeing strep throats and diabetes at the clinic, hours of ordinary work for the people.
It was really hard for me to keep moving, ploddingly practicing medicine, but I had to do it. They needed me to provide their care.
There is that no-way-out feeling. We have to do this together. Individual humans just don't survive.
Any one of us has to come forward into the new world with the rest of us.
We have to co-create a living world. Selfish motives cannot work any more.
Sharing-paradigm-or-bust.
That's the conundrum, like in the dream, when you are just about to hit the ground and you wake up.
Spiritually, in Buddhism, this anguished helplessness is the situation to drive the soul to transcend the physical constraints.
The only way to change the hopeless situation is through spiritual engagement.
I practiced channeling love to each person I saw, or whose presence I felt, on my bike rides to work Thursday and Friday.
I both did so and noticed my impediments in doing so.
I'm a spiritual Swiss cheese.
MC on the Titanic theory and existential crisis. Absolutely. My version points to the fact that the SEC was created after the 1929 crash that was caused by 5% margin trading. An equivalent of 5% in-the-money call options (ITM). It's widely publicized that in 2020, the dumbest of the dumb are driving up stocks using (deep) out-of-the-money (OTM) call options, particularly on leadership stocks like FANG and TSLA in spades.
Think about that for a second.
The Great Depression and FDR. The New Deal (voted down by the supreme court a few times, until he threatened to pack the court)... Also the securities act, the adviser's act - top notch regulation in the world until even today! Also a brief multi-decade stint and corrective course of socialism and central planning taking over "capitalisms-first US". Because that's what happens with leverage running amok!
And things were "fine" for many decades. Until early 1980's de-regulation, cause "big gov't bad". Late 1990's repeal of the division between commercial and investment banking... Cause socialism died and capitalism is THE truth. Uh-oh, right?
And now in 2020. We go back all the way to 0 and deep past it into the land of obscene leverage for the masses - AGAIN. Even 5% ITM margin is 20x leverage. It's always literally game over with 5% ITM. There's no bet in the world that doesn't take you to BK with 5% leverage. You have to bet tiny portions of your capital to not run the risk of ruin. As if!
But it's way worse!
When the SEC patiently looks the other way and lets armies of Robinhooders (tails) wag 60% of world's market cap (US stocks) using nothing but leveraged lottery tickets - deep OTM calls... it's because scapegoats are needed for the crash. The crash itself is assured. It's just CYA time.
1. Musk - a rich mostly unpopular white South African with bs businesses barely producing anything, who's know the world's richest person! (Think South Sea Bubble). Think Michel Milken on crack. But yeah, white South African - jail worthy and no one will complain.
2. The masses themselves, who "recklessly" speculated and crashed the system. If we couldn't blame the masses themselves, the masses would come for blood or regulators and gov't and instead they will be told how bad they were and what kind of bread, sugar, and flour coupons they will get each month. Along with a few coupons of circus and chill.
And yes, the reset is global. More of a Chinese/Russian style of more explicitly/admittedly centrally-controlled "capitalism". US has operated on a mirage of "free market" primacy since the late 1930's. WW2 helped. (MC on pearl harbor........). And then after USSR fell, capitalism gunned itself into the wall, on Churchil-esque strawman argument logic.
It's a miracle we bridged it from 2008 for 12 years on a mirage of health. Now it's transition time! And what we are witnessing now is a demolition.