Humanity is plagued by "isms," like a tumor eating our brains from the inside out.
Today the US reached a grim milestone. 500,000 people have died due to the coronavirus. It is a number that could have been avoided had selfishness, ignorance, hatred and fear not reigned over my country. All through the veil of misguided isms in the form of propaganda that spread like a virus itself across the darkness of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
What is an ism?
But let's be real..."Isms" are the wedge driving labels that distinctively place us in groups to be categorized in by people with ulterior motives. Such is the case for the most obvious isms "conservatism" or "liberalism" that have ripped apart the soul of the United States over the last 5 years. This after finishing off it's rotted carcass it has been gnawing on since we gained independence from the British in the 1700's.
Conservatism and Liberalism are just social/political constructs created to divide us. From the evolution of conservatism into QAnon, MAGA and the cult like worship of Donald Trump that evolved from the cult like worship of Ronald Reagan, the underlying goal of conservatism is to keep people afraid of change and afraid of connecting on a global scale. When you're angry and afraid and you hear a bloated con man pretending to be a President screaming, "America first," all the time, and making you believe that minorities, immigrants and other nations are your enemies, not your lack of education, the festering small town you live in or the rotten gout infecting the industries that once supported your parents and their parents in rural America. Conservatism is just another way to make you believe Capitalism--by far America's most dangerous ism today, is the right way, the only way and your way. This can all just be called Nationalism which is another damn ism. At the forefront of the American social demise is MAGA - MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, a nationalist movement rooted in racism and referring to the times when white men riding a wave of capitalism ruled the world with swinging dick, a gun and a bible.
This nationalism has really delivered a blow to America I have never seen in my lifetime. At the time of writing this, I have currently lost four people in my life due to Covid 19. The pandemic really smashed America and the world in general, hard. The US was particularly crippled by the ignorance of its leader (whose name I will not mention as to give him power like a demon) who politicized the pandemic and the wearing of masks for his own political and financial gain. Instead of helping us heal and get over the pandemic by trusting science, he used it as a tool to anger his base and in turn helped fuel his financial life outside of the White House with lies and anti science rhetoric. Using nationalism to stoke the fears of conservatism was an easy way for him to rebuke science and in turn cause the US to be the leader in Covid19 in all the wrong categories. My Aunt just died last week of Covid19 complications. This could have been avoided but nationalism, tribalism, conservatism, capitalism and assholism won out. Nationalism leads to militarism as well which leads to war--the single dumbest thing the human race has ever done to each other.
Liberalism in America today is also a farce in its own right. While positioning itself as the cure to the ills of MAGA and racism (another ism America is reckoning with) it has been neutered to never go as far as it needs to, to truly help the American people. Instead it goes just far enough to make it look like progress. Today's liberalism is very much yesterday's left/center politics. Liberalism lacks the courage to do what's right and stand up against the capitalism that is causing a gigantic societal rift in our country. Liberalism from a governmental perspective is too worried about being progressive to actually be liberal. The battle between the haves and have nots is truly at the precipice. When 1% of the world's population holds most of its wealth how can anyone truly get ahead? Well that rhetorical is answered with sadness as we see that the middle class in America is dying and the gap between the rich and the poor has widened ever so much over the course of the pandemic. They've failed on healthcare for all, failed on a livable wage and failed on our educational system so much that when our last president of the US came into power he was able to con Americans into believing these things were evil. Rather than saying no, our left leaning politicians have tried to cater to potentially convertible conservatives to join their cause by not touching any policy that resembles Socialism.
Ahhhh Socialism. The political boogeyman of the right wing. Conservatism trains their followers with propaganda to fear socialism even though it's being used by our government on a daily basis. All those roads you drive on, public schools you go to and sidewalks you walk on---all socialism. But--but--but---but her emails! Then comes Communism which is another ism that most conservatives couldn't even define but hate and use the word "commie" to slam their left rivals. All of this is here to hide the rise of fascism within the Christian right slithering into power in the Republican party.
But hey let's not pay attention to ANY of this. Let's focus on the real problem propaganda delivers on a daily basis through outlets like Fox News. Our real enemy is immigrants, women, gender politics and more. Anything that challenges that traditional conservatism from changing. But let's be real, feminism is another great tool of division that eats away at both the right and the left in very different ways. Whether it's a pink pussy hat to mock or just all out hatred of the role of women in society, this ism is one conservatives use as a lightning rod of hatred to smash the left all the time.
But one that just hurts is chauvinism or just straight up "misogynism" (yes I know that's not a word, but I need to make my point) which has been ingrained in our society in every level from our place in it to where we work to every household in America. This is the ism that white males in America really have the toughest time with. When your "titties and beer" are threatened to the very soul of your man cave, you know there is gonna be some blowback here. Especially for the folks that buy into the propaganda.
Racism, as I mentioned earlier is a huge problem in America if you couldn't tell. Racism is by far the biggest ism Americans can't seem to come to terms with. Why? Because admitting it, defeating it and refocusing it would force conservatism and liberalism to look in the mirror and be forced to tear down the institutions they've vehemently defended since the 1700's. You'll hear conservatives claim they don't see color yet turn around and blame Black Lives Matter for every burning city in a protest. And if conservatives are the ones most commonly guilty of racism let's not pretend the WASPs aren't really just like the family in the movie Knives Out as well. Racist on the down low.
Then we have terrorism. This is a loaded diaper of an ism. Filled with all of the runny shits from every society but mostly a word that is truly meaningless now. MAGA is a terrorist movement who have sworn an oath to a bloated, ignorant con man and the hate he has shoveled out in droves. MAGA believes in this coward so much that they hang on every one of his lies and attacked our nation's capital in his name to prove it. In order to help overturn the election that Joe Biden won, a clown posse epitomized by the "QAnon shaman" (a bearded viking hat wearing honky, covered in white power symbols) attempted to kill members of the house of representatives and Vice President Mike Pence all in the name of MAGA. This is nationalism and terrorism. A 2fer!
But I digress, let's not forget the most divisive of all isms, religion! Whether it's Judaism which is confronted by anti semitism or it's Buddhism or Catholicism religion is just designed to crush our individualism--which is the best ism I've mentioned thus far.
I'm just too tired to even dive into the others like sexism, alcoholism, racism, activism--ahh you get the picture, right?
So what's my point? My point is that while we're so worried about our isms and the isms of others, the 1% is raping us with capitalism. When we are divided by the sims we are distracted and dumb. We are angry and blame each other for all of our own failures and faults in society. If we just stopped allowing these isms to control us we would see that a person who believes in different political, religious ideologies is not your enemy. That a person fo a different color or gender is not your enemy. Our true enemy is capitalism and all of the tools it uses to divide us and keep us distracted so it can profit off of stocks during the pandemic or it can gauge energy prices during a weather disaster in Texas (looking at you Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones). We are not the enemy of each other. We are all people that deserve to live our lives the way we want to without being told what to do by a rival political party--as long it does not culminate in the suffering fo others. Which I sadly have to mention because one things Americans have truly lost sight of is compassion for the struggles of one another. Instead of help we hate. Instead of find out more, we fear. Instead of make love, we make war.
There is only one ism America and the world need now and that's humanism. That's the only true ism I subscribe to. It's Punk AF. My whole goal for the rest of my life is to seek out others who also believe in humanism above any other ism. It's the way of the future if we are to survive. It's the reason I found the solarpunk genre. I at first was attracted to the cool sci-fi art and the potential it offered me but I stayed for the community and the willingness to demand a better a future. That's why this site is aptly named that. I am sick and tired of isms and all the bullshit that is attached to them. I'm tired of fighting people who are struggling just like me--just like us all. Once we realize that we are not each other's enemies--the politicians that take lobby money from the capitalist cronies like Wall Street, the big banks, big energy, big pharma, big processed food etc---once we stop letting all these vampires drink our blood, we can truly change society for the better. But as long as Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Rachel Maddow are striking fear in the hearts of people and spouting lies to keep us fighting--we will just sit in this pile of isms and lick our own private parts.
It's time to flush all the isms down the toilet. Except one. Humanism.
