In a society where herd mentality is regularly and actively misidentified as a precursor to herd immunity, as though anything legitimately alternative might ever pop up on the streaming platform of your choosing, it’s little wonder that there should be such a dramatic public disconnect by so many millions from the idea of social distancing. Or that the millions who do engage in this pandemic-era demand for social distancing can yet make excuses for their own timely exceptions wherever and whenever convenient.
But it is not simply the matter of Americans willfully disconnecting from the reality of contagion, but that they have long ago disconnected from reality itself, with the further their kind flees from the virtues of the natural world the more irrationally their society contorts for that blessed sake of convenience. Even with the virus aside then, in keeping with the wishes of the masses, earners of minimum wage who represent the greater portion of the population cannot afford basic rent in any of the 50 states; a life-suppressing matter much longer in the making than said pandemic. And people may gripe on their social media digs, but still they go along with it. Their government actively militarizing its own inferiority complexes against them and still the greater majority of the population not only goes along with it, but rationalizes the murderous violence with delirious fantasies of embedded agents getting extracted or that the calamity is somehow a justifiable response on par with Israeli nuclear capacity aimed at rock-throwing Palestinian children. By all accounts the majority seems okay with this, if the White House has yet to be burned to the fucking ground. And as with the many who make excuses for bending the rules of social distancing, many more justify their own paltry efforts at resistance under the presumption that what passes for their conviction is the norm, that their beliefs are held by the masses themselves and thus others will do all the heavy lifting to make those dreams come true, as opposed to the actuality of every single citizen fan-fictionalizing the society which suffocates them all the same. Contrary to the highest fatality rate of the pandemic, contrary to the domestic law enforcement murdering some 1000 persons per year secret police backups notwithstanding, and contrary to an economy that is fundamentally dependent upon exploitation and extortion. There is no revolution. Trump is not going to prison. There are no more straws to grasp onto.
Unity and solidarity do not mean that everyone must agree with me, must share every last one of my personal beliefs, as that’s merely another form of imperialism. But that is precisely how Americans of all classes view their respective, personalized lists of demands they regard as the one, true pathway to utopia or super-stardom or self-respect, with all sides of the limited political spectrum measuring patriotism by how many Americans they hate. As though patriotism held any real meaning at all, much less one that could or should replace all virtue. The shared link narrating this to life being that accountability is refused by everybody, patriotism conveniently side-stepping the urgent need for personal responsibility inherent to all virtue and virtue being impossible alongside any variety of ego. There is no ethical way to be a citizen of the USA, not when everyone’s comfort comes before life and death concerns.
I have never been a Democrat or a Republican. I have never been a Capitalist, Communist or Socialist, because I don’t think anybody should be working for profits at all. In this have I remained consistent in my principles and convictions, which set me apart from all other Americans. I have refused all my life to pretend that any element of this society is normal or just. I won’t make-believe that this systemic culture is worth upholding, and I won’t make-believe that changing the profiteers will magically pardon how those ends are met, the wet-dreams of the political left being no better, no more virtuous, than the political right’s form of self-entitlement. God fucking forbid you instead give the entirety of your twitter time to physically helping those in need, your netflix time to physically helping those in need, your masturbation time to physically helping those in need. I won’t speak for anyone else and I won’t allow anyone else to speak for me. I do not want your friendship or camaraderie or romance, because no ego should be fed, not yours or mine, and all you are offering regardless of who you are or who you think you are, is the opportunity to lie to me, to cheat me or to steal from me for what societal norms inform you is your own personal lack of alternative.
Reaching my own conclusions, formulating my own ideas and ideals, is of far graver importance to me than quoting movies or the reading lists of favored partisans. These are my words and none can take blame or credit but me and to see that is all the glory and burden of power anybody has any business experiencing for themselves.
It is not the function of reality or of truth to flatter anyone or anything, and those here in the states cannot and will not stomach that, preferring adamantly to be confined to the fantasies and ignorance grown behind the walls of comfort zones, echo chambers, safe spaces and news bubbles; walls very purposefully erected to block out whatever truth and reality that might conflict with convenience and comfort levels, when communities do not become gated because they are secure but because they are insecure. Your own personal ego is no more justifiable or rational than that of Trump’s own one-dimensional psyche, because what anybody wants will forever callously be allotted more value than what others may need, and therein is the self-destruction of any group, any alliance, any relationship: the ego’s pursuit of gratification.
Citizens of the USA are to blame for the predicaments they face, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Scapegoating makes them no more virtuous than their elected leaders or their cultural icons. Nobody combats a gang-rape by participating in it, or by rooting for whomever to get the biggest slice of the splattered cream-pie. You have one and all played a part in this ongoing devastation, and so I stand to my dying day in opposition of every selfish dream you hold dear, every wish you entitle yourself to, every marketing jingle which bought and sold you short under the inane presumption that it will somehow magically lead to the shear vanity of your dreams and wishes ever even vaguely coming to pass. Faith and hope are luxuries. Love is a guise under all conditions, the best of times and the worst of times both being subjective ordeals when death is the universal epilogue. You choose only to not be better with the little time afforded you here and now, insisting these dilapidated United States of America are anything but a pipe-dream where all participants feeding the fires are junkies desperate for the short-cut to limbo. As though no other escapes might be found from your own bad decisions.