Hide Your Daughters! Roy Moore is Coming!

During the latter part of 2017, sexual assault came to the forefront of American political discourse, thanks largely to the downfall of Hollywood heavyweight Harvey Weinstein, which itself is the product of budding journalist Ronan Farrow’s scathing (and Pulitzer-worthy) bombshell report about the litany of sexual assault claims against him. Following Weinstein came a succession of other figures meeting the same fate. Pedestals fell out from under the likes of actor Kevin Spacey, comedian Louis C.K., NBC news anchor Matt Lauer, and even Senator Al Franken. The hyper-focus on the sexual assault virulently present in American society also prompted Time Magazine to declare the Silence Breakers — or the “#MeToo” movement — as their Person(s) of the Year, usurping such prominent lightning rods as the polarizing President Donald Trump, his potential adversary in Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the existentially-in-crisis DREAMERS, and former NFL player-turned-social activist Colin Kaepernick.

Even though Farrow’s report has sent media and political figures to the gallows, not everyone is on board with every incident that becomes public knowledge. In Alabama, a special election is taking place that will test the importance of this social wildfire in an arena where it is needed most: to determine who takes over the Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions following his appointment to the head of the U.S. Justice Department.

On one hand, there is a Democratic challenger in Doug Jones. He’s charismatic and has a plan for the welfare of Alabama that isn’t hinged on such open-ended guarantees as God, guns, and good ‘ol Southern hospitality. However, he is a Democrat, and in a state like Alabama, to be a Democrat is akin to punching a pastor in the dick, declaring yourself an atheist, and engaging in homosexual sex acts while burning the church down — during Sunday services. But despite his political affiliations, Doug Jones has shown he is capable, and it’s not like he isn’t without support. Even some Republicans have thrown themselves into his camp.

The person he’s challenging, however, has been the heir apparent since wiping the floor with another challenger, the temporary incumbent Luther Strange, several weeks back in a Republican Primary runoff election. Roy Moore is, in many ways, the epitome of what it means to be an Alabaman. He prioritizes God over even his country’s borderline-sacred Constitution. He’s garnered support from the NRA and several well-known conservative groups. He loathes what he believes to be “political correctness” and viciously attacks the “liberal media.” He paints himself as a maverick challenging creeping liberalism with six-shooters that may as well have been baptized on the taint of Ronald Reagan himself.

Roy Moore, the man seeking to fill Jeff Sessions’ Senate seat.

Roy Moore has even garnered support from President Donald Trump, which for some reason seems to be a good enough reason for many to support him. But here’s where these narratives converge. Sexual assault is front and center in this race.

LAST thing the Make America Great Again Agenda needs is a Liberal Democrat in Senate where we have so little margin for victory already. The Pelosi/Schumer Puppet Jones would vote against us 100% of the time. He’s bad on Crime, Life, Border, Vets, Guns & Military. VOTE ROY MOORE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2017

Despite the poll numbers that show Roy Moore winning next week to varying degrees, he shares much with the embattled figures who have recently been “Me-Too’d” into the cold recesses of social pariahdom. Moore himself is in the midst of significant sexual assault claims. The only real difference between him and Franken, Lauer, and Weinstein is that the allegations against Moore involve minors.

At the core of the allegations is Leigh Corfman, who was 14 years old when she was approached by Moore outside of a courtroom in Etowah County, Alabama in 1979. Moore was, at the time, a 32-year-old assistant district attorney. Corfman’s mother, Nancy Wells, was at the courthouse because of a child custody hearing. Moore offered to keep an eye on the teenager, telling her mother that she “didn’t want [Leigh] to hear [what was said in the courtroom],” which Wells initially thought was an altruistic gesture. Moore and Corfman chatted for a while, which resulted in Moore getting her phone number.

Several days later, Moore picked up Corfman from her neighborhood in Gadsden and took her 30 miles away, to his place in the woods. He told her how pretty she was. He kissed her. He made her take off her clothes. He fondled her through her bra and underwear. He made her fondle him through his underwear. The entire exchange was horrifying to Corfman, who demanded he take her home when he had his fill.

Along with Corfman are several other accusers, all of whom were between the ages of 16 and 18, while Moore was in his early 30’s. Gloria Deason was an 18-year-old cheerleader when Moore began bringing her bottles of wine, despite the legal drinking age in Alabama being 19 at the time. Wendy Miller met Moore when she was 14 and working a holiday job at the Gadsden Mall, which progressed into Moore asking her for dates at the age of 16. Debbie Gibson was 17 when Moore spoke to her high school civics class, then asked her out on several dates that never progressed intimately beyond kissing.

In 1991, Roy Moore is alleged to have grabbed 28-year-old Tina Johnson’s buttocks during a child custody transfer meeting.

When Kelly Thorp was a 17-year-old waitress at Red Lobster, Moore, then in his 30’s, repeatedly asked her out. When she asked him if he knew how old she was, he replied, “I go out with girls your age all the time.” Thorp rejected him.

Gena Richardson met Moore while working in a Sears at the Gadsden Mall. She was a senior in high school. Richardson claims she didn’t give Moore her phone number, so he resorted to calling her at school to ask her out. She agreed and says that as she was getting out of his car, he pulled her back in and forced a kiss on her, terrifying the girl. Her account is corroborated by classmates and another woman who worked with Richardson at the time.

Further insights into Moore’s predatory behavior came from Becky Gray, who also worked at a mall, and Phyllis Smith, who warned other mall employees to “watch out for this guy.”

A former colleague of Moore’s stated “it was common knowledge that Roy dated high school girls,” a claim that has been corroborated by several current and former resident of Etowah County. Moore was also banned from the Gadsden Mall in the early 1980s for picking up teenage girls.

This is the guy running for Jeff Sessions’ old seat.

We can speak at length about his professional controversies, which include twice leaving the bench of the Alabama Supreme Court under dubious circumstances. But that shouldn’t matter here. All that matters when it comes to the matter of Roy Moore is the fact that he is a sexual predator with a history of stalking minors. Most of these incidents may date back to the late 1970s, but time should never be factor in making this kind of determination.

At the end of the day, Roy Moore is a sexual predator running for Congress. That should be all that anyone needs to know when making a decision on whether or not he deserves to be there. Harvey Weinstein is a sexual predator and he was forced out of the company he built. That was enough to force him out. Matt Lauer is a sexual predator and he was forced out of NBC. That was enough to force him out. Al Franken is a sexual predator and he resigned from Congress. That was enough to force his resignation. Hell, Jared Fogle is an actual pedophile and not only was his likeness scrubbed from Subway’s history, he is incarcerated for it. So, why should anyone approach Roy Moore any differently?

Right, because his challenger is a Democrat and if there’s one thing that’s worse than being a sexual predator and a pedophile in Alabama, it’s being a Democrat.

Priorities.

Featured image via Wikimedia Commons and is in the public domain. Edited by the author.

Train of Thought I: Violence to Protest

I came across a video yesterday perfectly showing the psychosis currently plaguing the United States right now. During a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, in what appears to be a high school, a kid sits at his desk. Another kid then takes it upon himself to show the sitting kid what America is all about by kicking the chair out from under him.

It’s a spectacle of violence that, unfortunately, some acquaintances of mine celebrated. It’s “patriotism” run amok, indicative of what it means to have an opinion on something in Donald Trump’s America.

I’ve written about my thoughts on the Pledge of Allegiance before, so I’m not going to dive too much into it right now. But despite the differences of opinion these two boys obviously have, at the end of the day, the kid in the chair was on the receiving end of politically-motivated violence. That, by definition, makes the kid who kicked his chair a terrorist.

But let’s not harp on that. Let’s instead focus on what’s really going on here.

To exist in the United States these days, and have an opinion on just about anything, is to walk around with a target on your back. It’s not even just politics that puts someone in the crosshairs. It’s even innocuous crap like sports and entertainment. We judge each other harshly, without even so much as a thought about how moronic we look doing it. We say dumb shit for the purpose of pointing out things we believe to be dumb shit and when someone calls us out for saying dumb shit, we get defensive and only succeed in making ourselves look like a dumbshit.

This is at it worst when it comes to topics having to do with patriotism.

It’s totally fine if someone believes that a refusal to stand for the National Anthem or say the Pledge of Allegiance is unpatriotic or deserving of ire. It’s a completely different thing to support an act of violence in the pursuit of your patriotism. In searching YouTube for the video above, other titles that popped up included:

INSTANT JUSTICE! AFTER THIS EMO SNOWFLAKE DECIDED TO DISRESPECT AMERICA HE INSTANTLY REGRETTED IT (posted by The Next News Network)

MOST PATRIOTIC KID IN AMERICA: Kicks Chair Under Kid For Refusing To Stand For Pledge of Allegiance (posted by MR. OBVIOUS)

Student won’t stand for Pledge of Allegiance. Patriotic student isn’t having it (posted by 50 State Report)

Each of these titles celebrates an act of violence. This celebration is unfortunately the new normal, the perfect diction to entice people like the acquaintances I referenced above into not only supporting the reason for the violence, but the violence itself.

Speaking as someone who hasn’t said the Pledge of Allegiance in over 15 years, by choice, I do not believe it is obscene to the sanctity of the American identity to refuse to say it. Similarly, I do not believe that is obscene to the sanctity of the American identity to kneel in protest to the National Anthem. When you strip away the context for why the National Anthem protests are happening in the first place, like way too many people already do, all that’s left is the obvious: we’re fighting vehemently over whether or not someone stands in the audience of a piece of cloth already subjected to our daily disrespect. It’s an asinine thing to fight about. Yet, here we are, fighting about it to such an extent that it has prompted that bloated tangerine-hued sack of discharge leaking all over the Oval Office to demand pro sports team owners discipline their players if they participate.

It’s times like these when all I can do is sigh and say the following about this country I genuinely love being a part of: fuck us.

Go Suck A Glock

The shooting in Las Vegas has once again ignited America’s all-too-routine scream-preaching about the role of guns in our society. Like with almost every other issue detrimental to our ability to democratically function, we’ve broken ourselves into two camps largely split among partisan lines and all we’re going to do is scream, rant, and rave to one another about statistics and constitutional interpretations until we all pass out from anger. Then, we’ll forget about this one, the conversation will be relegated to the middle of the paper and “recommended reading for you” sections of Internet publications, and when the next mass shooting rolls around, we’ll resume and pull these stories and editorials back to the front page.

Us Americans are fairly predictable on these matters, and as I’m sure you may have guessed from the headline and the opening paragraph, this is a post about the role of guns in our society. Yep, we’re pretty fucking predictable.

For the sake of full disclosure, if I could snap my fingers and make reality bend to my will, guns would not exist. I actually believe that a disarmed society has a better chance at being a thriving one than an armed society, based on the evidence I’ve seen from other nations that have enacted strict gun control laws. That’s not to say that these nations are utopian or that violent crime doesn’t exist in them, but residing in these nations doesn’t come with a caveat that people may get mowed down with a military-grade rifle when attending a country music show, going to the movies, or even sending their kids to school. The reality is that these things happen with stunning regularity in the United States and rarely happen, if at all, in nearly every other developed nation. No matter where one stands on the gun control debate, that fact cannot be refuted. The frequency and severity of mass shootings experienced in the United States is uniquely a problem of the United States.

But what of it, right? Obviously the people who orchestrate these acts are deranged, mentally ill, or dare I say, evil, right? Well no. They’re not, at least not all of them. Even though Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) seems to think that the best way to combat these acts of violence is to commit to “mental health reform” — which upon itself is a noble pursuit because the mentally ill in this country are treated like dog shit (case in point, mental illness as a common scapegoat for mass shootings) — the fact remains that research indicates only about three to five percent of all acts of violence are perpetrated by the mentally ill. In reality, the mentally ill are a regularly victimized class of people, a vulnerable demographic more likely to be on the receiving end of violence than actually orchestrating it themselves. Also, more often than not, the mentally ill engage their anger and occasional violence inward, more likely to hurt themselves than others as not to pass their own burdens off to anyone else. This is another fact that cannot be refuted. The mentally ill do not, as far as evidence holds, exhibit violent tendencies at the same rate as those who are not mentally ill. The opposite is actually true.

So why do we continue to engage the same tired talking points every time someone yells “hold my beer” after watching coverage of a “worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history?” Because we, for whatever reason, feel the need to add a degree of understanding to these events that morphs them into something easy for us to digest. It’s easier to process 58 dead, 500+ injured after being sprayed with assault rifle rounds from a high hotel balcony if we can call the shooter “evil” and spend a few days fighting with each other about guns. It also takes away from the fact that such acts of violence are entirely random. There is no rhyme or reason to them. While we clamor to put motive in the mouth of a homicidal individual who is, at the end of the event, more often dead than alive, we ignore what is staring us in the face: the shooter did it because they wanted to.

These are our habits. This is how we grieve. But this grieving process is one that does more harm than good. It exacerbates schisms that already exist, like throwing gas on a continuously burning sociological pyre that we eventually grow tired of watching until the flames suddenly and thunderously intensify.

But we’re not going to change, despite the severity of this one, just like we didn’t change despite the severity of the last one. The same tired routine is going to play out. We’re going to fight. We’re going to yell. We’re going to engage in conspiracy theories. Congress is going to get down on its collective knees and suck the NRA’s glock until it shoots rounds at the next group of unfortunate souls who will find themselves a part of the next “worst mass shooting in modern US history.” Why? Because this is America, where the rights of people to stroke their AR-15s trumps safety. We’re the land of not getting things done, the land of “well, that’s good enough.” As conservative pundit Bill O’Reilly said, getting mowed down in a mass shooting is “the price of freedom.”

But this is only the “price of freedom” because, to us, it is impossible to accept that truly being free requires certain freedoms to be impotent. Thoughts and prayers are not, and never have been, enough.

Featured image by USAF Tech. Sgt. Jerome S. Tayborn.

Training Videos, Part 2: Wendy’s

About a year ago, we dove headfirst into Blockbuster training videos. It was a disturbing affair —

Holy shit! These videos are, like, so ridiculously 90s!

Or, like Peter Engel secretly collaborated with David Cronenberg in a fluorescent/techno-horror-inspired conspiracy to destroy Blockbuster from the inside out. Seriously, who the hell wants to work at Blockbuster after watching Buster Sales all but tell Marie to get in his goddamn van?

— but we got through it.

Since we got through Blockbuster with only modest therapy bills (well, save for Biscuit’s psychotic breakdown), we at The Zephyr Lounge: After Dark feel compelled to revisit the Golden Raspberry-worthy cinematic masterpieces companies use to teach their employees the way of the workplace. In today’s entry, we move from retail to fast food, focusing our attention on:

 

 

As purveyor’s of cardiovascular distress, Wendy’s has been a staple of the fast food industry for decades. Their founder, one Mr. David Thomas, founded Wendy’s on the premise that “good ol’ fashioned haymburgers” are the “best in the bidness,” and strove until his dying day to make Wendy’s the gold-standard when it comes to grease-covered, ground-up cow bits shoved between two pieces of bread alongside pieces of a salad and sugary sauces.

And to reach that gold standard, the person making the best ol’ fashioned haymburger in the bidness needed some serious grill skills.

What began as a rejected Billy Ray Cyrus track became a longer-than-necessary introduction by Mr. Dave Thomas, then suddenly devolved into a kid who ate too many magic mushrooms learning how to operate the grill. The video is over fifteen minutes long. I don’t expect you to watch the whole thing, but if nothing else, watch from 3:30 to 11:35, and yes, that pick to your right is for the purpose of self-lobotomy.

Grill Skill is the perfect training video. It contains useful information from the guy who created the bidness, a seemingly innocuous exchange between a bright-eyed preppie and a manager who you know smokes an entire pack of menthol cigarettes each night while wondering where she went wrong in her life, malfunctioning technology as a foil for techno-horror, a bad rap by a dude who you know smokes several bowls of weed each night while wondering where he went wrong in his life, initial struggles turning into success through expedient coaching, and a happy ending for the bright-eyed preppie in a kitchen populated by people who drink excessively each night wondering where they went wrong in their lives.

But for as hilariously bad as Grill Skill is, Wendy’s isn’t done with turning away potential employees with awful information moving pictures.

In Wendy’s quest to be the best haymburger in the bidness, it was decided at some board meeting somewhere at some point that there will be strict guidelines on how Wendy’s serves cold beverages to its culinarily indecisive customer base. We are unsure of this person’s name, so for purposes of this writing, we’ll refer to this 90’s-as-fuck-looking paid actor as Rachel.

A one-minute and fifty-four second car accident, Rachel explains the company guidelines for drink presentation as if the director had recently given up on any semblance of a legitimate filmmaking career. While it seems silly to devote an entire training video to proper beverage packaging, this video is still brilliant in its awfulness. We’re not the only one’s cringing, either. Here’s what the YouTube commenters left as insight:

“I didn’t realize filling cups with liquid was so complicated it needed an instructional video.” — divefraggle

“Back when white people worked fast food.” — White Guy

“I am strangely attracted to the singing lady. Her dead stare, her sterile voice and her sickly pale skin are hypnotising [sic].” — megatroll

“Damn that drink girl was too cold, you see that ‘fuck me now’ look she gave right at the end?” — videoluvr4204

“I feel like Wendy’s was experiencing the 90’s much more vividly than we did.” — theflamelord

“This bitch got nothin’ on the ‘hot drinks’ guy.” — iamZahnder

Speaking of… If Cold Drinks is a car accident, Hot Drinks is a derailed Amtrak train.

And if Hot Drinks is a derailed Amtrak train, The Fry Guy is the goddamned Hindenburg.

Seriously, how do companies think that videos like this are going to entice prospective employees to give more than a singular shit about them? We understand these are attempts to appeal to young people — informative and kinda-culturally relevant! — but if there is one thing that turns off a young person more than the possibility of grease burns and social ridicule it’s an attempt at cultural appropriation by out-of-touch baby boomers vainly seeking to procure more human capital.

It’s possible we’re looking too much into this. Perhaps these are actually entertaining to some people? Maybe we’re just too cynical to see how impactful these videos may have been (well, except for Father Philip, who at this very moment is trying to find the director for series of inspirational videos for his church cult church).

But most of us have been resistant to this type of “trying to be cool”-type video. Granted, most of us here at The Zephyr Lounge: After Dark are early-Millennials (or Echo Boomers — we’re still trying to get that to catch), so we were often subjected to shit like this.

And people wonder why we did all of the drugs… and also ate a lot of good ‘ol fashioned haymburgers.

Featured image by Nick22aku, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

So Alex Jones’ Life is in Your Hands…

Oh, shit. What do I do? What do I do?

Hey punkass!

You! You son of a bitch! What are you doing here?

As your moral compass, I’m here to help you make an important decision.

Oh really?

Why, yes. After all, Alex Jones’ life is literally in your hands right now.

Oh, right. *drops Jones to floor*

Quick question though. How did we get here?

Well, to make a long story short, I stopped into this store to pick up bread and he was here, screaming about a New World Order to some pineapples–

That checks.

–when he just fell down clutching the right side of his chest.

Funny how there’s a bunch of people here.

Isn’t it?

They’re giving us overtime today.

Huh?

Everyone here is failing to act because they’re talking to themselves the same way you are.

So that means?

Yes, John Nash. You’re not the only one who talks to themselves whenever faced with some kind of crisis.

So, what do I do?

I’ll tell you what you do. You go out and buy Kiss’ Psycho Circus. It’s a much better album than people remember.

What the fuck, man? What do I do about Alex Jones?!

Oh! Right. Fuck that guy. Let him die.

Are you kidding me? I’m not just gonna let him die?

Why not?

Because he’s a human being who needs help and I’m a good person who helps people when they need it!

But how do we know he’s a real person? He could be a crisis actor playing Alex Jones.

What?!

Yeah, or this is an Alex Jones clone manufactured by the United States government in partnership with Mattel.

The toy company? Who did Barbie and that green dinosaur from Toy Story?

The former only, but yes.

Wait! You don’t buy any of this conspiratorial crap, do you?

I prefer to use the term — what is it the kids say these days? — “woke.”

Woke? Really?

Yeah. I mean, I’m onto a lot of things, man. Like did you know that the government controls the weather for nefarious purposes? And Hilary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of a pizza place?

What the fuck?!

Yeah, and here’s another doozy. There’s a child slavery colony on Mars.

No there’s not! NASA came out and actually had to assure everyone there wasn’t!

But they’re the government. Of course they won’t own up to something like that.

What the fuck, man! You’re supposed to be my moral compass!

Exactly! That’s my whole point. This fuckwit actually buys into this shit and is convincing other people of it as well. Let him fucking die, man.

So, let me get this straight. You want me to let him die?

Yes. See all those people? Their moral compasses are telling them the same thing.

Just let him die of a heart attack in the produce section of H-E-B?

Or, you could be the better man and help him.

Now we’re back at square one.

Indeed. This is why I’m here.

You’re not really helping me, conscience. We’ve more or less arrived back at square one and, wait, buy Kiss’ Psycho Circus?

Yup. If you do anything else with your day, find that album.

You’re joking, right?

Nope. I’m as serious as Alex Jones is going to be if you don’t act quickly. *beat* You know, dead serious?

You’re an idiot.

I manifest from your brain.

Point taken.

So, what are you gonna do?

I’m gonna call an ambulance. He may be batshit and partially responsible for how intellectually-stunted America has become, but he’s still a person and no person deserves to die in a produce section with an audience.

If you must.

I must.

*muttering* There goes the world, I guess…

What?

There’s an opportunity here. If Alex Jones dies, then he can’t poison the minds of the less-than-educated anymore. The country will have one less purveyor of horseshit to contend with. You could be doing the world a favor here.

But if I fail to act, am I not complicit in his death?

Well, sure, but think of everyone you’d be saving in the process. Throw that switch. You know you should.

Stop trying to tempt me with the Trolley Problem!

It makes sense, doesn’t it? Think of the capacity for damage inherent in Alex Jones. Think of the people who are worse-off because he exists. After all, does he not deserve this? Screaming at pineapples about shadow governments and shit…

He may be a loon, but he’s still a person.

Who brought this myocardial infarction on himself. Anyone who’s that pissed off all the time brings it on themselves.

But I can still help him! Show him kindness and shit! It’s the human thing to do and–

Out of the way! Move out!

Well, someone beat you too it, I guess. Someone else made the human decision and helped a dying man in need.

Fuck… now I’m that guy.

Yup. The guy who did nothing.

*sigh* Fine.

Now what are you going to do?

*typing on phone* Psssyyyccchhooo Ciiirrrcccuusss…

Featured image by Sean P. Anderson, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Can We Finally Do the Right Thing and Blacklist Alex Jones?

Since the avoidable tragedy that was the 2016 Presidential election, Infowars founder/sentient Mel Gibson movie Alex Jones has been experiencing an increase in relevance. President Trump has lauded the web content producer’s “amazing” reputation. Infowars has received White House press credentials. Jones was the subject of a Megan Kelly interview that put his face on TV screens around the nation.

Despite a brutal, public divorce, it seems to be a good time to be Alex Jones. Which is exactly the reason why he needs to be shut down, quickly, and with extreme prejudice.

What Alex Jones puts into sociopolitical narratives is nothing short of dangerous. This is the same man who believes the Sandy Hook shooting is a hoax perpetuated by the United States government and “crisis actors,” all in the name of strict gun control. This is the same man who thinks the United States government is capable of controlling the weather for nefarious purposes. This is the same man whose claim that Hillary Clinton and other Democrats were running a child sex ring out of a pizza restaurant led 28-year-old Infowars enthusiast Edgar Maddison Welch to drive from North Carolina to D.C., armed with an AR-15, with intent to save the children he believed were being held captive there. He’s repeatedly gotten up in arms about Satanists taking over America, claimed that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is on a mass eugenics mission for the New World Order, that the United States government is complicit in numerous terrorist and lone gunman attacks as a pretext for martial law, and most recently, promoted the idea that NASA has a child slave colony on Mars, which caught on to such an extent that NASA had to publicly deny the existence of said child slave colony.

In the pre-Internet days, Alex Jones would be a man with bizarre beliefs confined to a dingy upper-level apartment with white boards, scattered empty soup-in-a-cup containers, and tabloid articles taped to yellowed walls. But these days, Alex Jones is not only in the dialogue, but is apparently influential enough to add to it.

Including the President, his sons, and potentially others within the highest levels of the United States government, Infowars boasts a substantial number of visitors every month. According to Quantcast, whose entire business is measuring and analyzing web traffic and demographics for advertising, Infowars had 22.4 million page views from June 12 — July 11, 2017. That averages out to about 750,000 page views of Infowars content, daily. While we can assume not everyone who visits Infowars is there to heed the call of Messiah Jones, that figure is still high enough to be indicative of a serious problem with which the people of the United States need to desperately begin contending — the creation, consumption, and justification of “fake news.”

The President of the United States, and those closest to him, are quick to accuse long-standing, prestigious institutions of news and current events as “fake news” whenever these institutions do their job and hold the government to account. The media is, after all, the Fourth Estate. But President Trump and his ilk are also quick to champion media outlets like Infowars as genuine purveyors of information, despite repeated fact-checks that contradict the Trump Administration’s sentiments.

In the Trump Administration, legitimate media is “fake news” and fake news is legitimate media.

But is any of this enough to blacklist Alex Jones? After all, is he not protected by free speech? He is, but at the end of the day, free speech isn’t completely free. There are limits, and one of those limits is when speech becomes a clear and present danger.

Image by Sean P. Anderson, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

If Infowars were merely contained to a dilapidated basement and a pirate radio station, Jones’ particular brand of conspiracy-juiced garbage would be an annoyance, at best. But when Infowars becomes a power player in the crippling of the nation’s ability to differentiate between what is real and what are the paranoid ramblings of a wannabe journalist, then the brand — and its moronic founder — are causing actual harm to the nation. Look no further than the story claiming Democrats were running a child sex ring out of a pizza restaurant. There was a person so moved by that horseshit that they armed themselves and nearly committed an act of domestic terrorism — all on a lie. A flagrant, bald-faced lie, promoted as a disturbing truth. Consider what life has been like for the parents of the children murdered at Sandy Hook, grieving over their lost children while Infowars-inspired goons batter them with accusations of crisis actors, false-flag operations, and death threats.

This is the web Alex Jones is weaving, and it’s becoming more dangerous with every strand. Infowars is a pox on American media, a festering ideological infection whose figurehead is an obscene false prophet from Texas whose life’s work is doing more keep people from reality than actually making people aware.

But I suppose with a name like Infowars, no one should be surprised by any of this.

Featured image by Megan Ann, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

On Colin Kaepernick

On January 12, 2013, I watched in stunned silence as 25-year-old Colin Kaepernick single-handedly beat the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Divisional Playoffs. After usurping former #1 overall pick Alex Smith, Kaepernick spent the second half of the 2012-13 NFL season on a tear. His rise brought renewed hope to a franchise proud of its quarterback heritage, who had been without a quarterback to be proud of for the better part of two decades. Colin Kaepernick grabbed the rest of the NFL by the short hairs, with comparable gusto and pizzazz to the out-of-left-field “Wildcat” offense fielded by the 2008 Miami Dolphins — which also resulted in record-setting success.

But just like with the “Wildcat” offense, the NFL caught on to Colin Kaepernick, and similarly to the Miami Dolphins, Kaepernick’s impact began to fade. While it is important to discuss Colin Kaepernick’s uncertain future in the context of his diminished play, that is not the only reason the former quarterback-of-the-future is a man without a job.

Starting in the 2016 NFL preseason, Colin Kaepernick began taking a knee during the National Anthem as a form of protest against the repeated incidents of police brutality and the malignancy of American criminal justice when it comes to people of color. He was only as distracting as the media made him out to be. He was silent. Stoic. Without any semblance of expectation for others to join him. He was the complete opposite of “distracting.”

However, those of us who cover current events, in whatever capacity we cover them, flocked to the story of a degenerating NFL quarterback taking an open and honest position on one of the United States’ greatest controversies. Fox News mocked him. Tomi Lauren dragged him through the mud. Newspapers, national news programs, and commentators both in the realms of politics and sports fought over him, putting words in his mouth that he wasn’t speaking, and only succeeded in using Kap’s cause to further the divide between the consumers they target. One man’s kneeling caused so much political strife that his face became synonymous with both heroism and villainy, in equal proportions.

In what may be one of the best articles I’ve read on ESPN in a significant amount of time, staff writer Dan Graziano bluntly broke down how regardless of whether one views Colin Kaepernick’s fall from the top as performance or politics, everyone is wrong:

“One side cries, ‘Kap’s being blackballed!’ The other side says, ‘It’s just that he’s not that good.’ Each side’s truth is undone by its blindness toward the other’s, and the Kaepernick conversation is too important to drown in the careless language of 21st century bickering.”

Truer words have not been spoken in the eight months since Kap took his first knee in protest. It’s not enough to point out that Kap’s numbers have diminished significantly, for that ignores the political component. Similarly, it’s not enough to point out that Kap’s choice of protest involved what many people view as disrespect to the integrity of one of the United States’ dearest institutions, for that ignores the performance component. The truth of the matter is that Colin Kapernick is stuck between a rock and a hard place, with both sides of the debate dug in and unwavering, and for all the support he has received from fans, and players in multiple sports, who believe him to be championing an important cause, he also finds himself held at the sword of a McCarthyist cabal of virulent “patriots,” among them a President of the United States who has not only painted Kaepernick as little more than hostile, adversarial, and un-American, but who has used his capacity as President of the United States to engage audiences with cancerous boasts about Kap’s lack of job prospects being one of his achievements.

If there were ever a face to personify the ideological division in this country, it is that of Colin Kaepernick and for that, we should all be ashamed of ourselves. Colin Kaepernick is more than a knee during a National Anthem. He’s more than a source of conservative faux-outrage or liberal posturing. He has actually followed through on his positions and his passions, using his hard-earned football dollars to help scores and scores of people whose lives are pestilent, violent, and full of uncertainty. He has done so many great things and will continue to do so. He is a philanthropist, and one whose philanthropy is guided by a drive seen almost exclusively in athletes.

While it’s important to keep in mind that Colin Kaepernick’s field vision is weak to the point where he is not the tour de force quarterback he was once touted, it is also important to remember that his vision is clear when it comes to things that are much more important than football. Colin Kaepernick has not only taken a stand (well, a knee) on significantly important national issues. He has, literally, put his money, his time, and his passion where his mouth is, which is more than can be said about many of his detractors and many who have taken similar positions as he. Even though it stands to reason Colin Kaepernick’s career is sunsetting, he has become a force in other fields where his time, money, and influence are better spent.

I believe that football is not what carves Colin Kaepernick’s name in annals of history and that his name will be more significant for it.

Featured image by Shea Huening, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

The Protest Vote

I don’t believe Donald Trump was elected President purely on the basis of what he’s promised to do or the things he’s said. I think the election of Donald Trump was effectively a protest vote — backlash at encroaching social liberalism and a multicultural American identity. If I am correct in this assertion, then people from sea to shining sea abandoned what this country is for what they presume it, or wish it, to be.

The United States wasn’t founded by tribalism, or for imperialism, or for social purity. The United States didn’t spawn from a singular base for a singular base. It wasn’t built to be a nation for a similar some. The United States was philosophically founded, and owes its existence to progressivists who subscribed to socially progressive ideas of autonomy and freedom, where one pledged not allegiance to a lineage, but to themselves. Politicians did not create this union, philosophers did, specifically philosophers influenced by dissenting liberal European intellectuals who questioned the legitimacy of the iron fist of individual rule, of monarchy, in favor of ideas we today umbrella under the catch-all term “freedom” — self-awareness, personal conviction, and the tender embrace of equality.

These ideas, Enlightenment ideas, are tangible as the United States of America, an ongoing social experiment founded by immigrants and refugees and continually expressed by descendants of immigrants and refugees. A crowned woman, holding a torch to illuminate the heavens, acts as a beacon of those ideas — “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” All that this nation is exists in those words, and yet here we are, quick to trade in that symbol for walls and sequestration and slamming shut the doors that were once held open for our own families. Enlightenment has been forsaken for deontological egoism, personified in irrationally moving a man into power who tapped into insecurity and fear so as to lead a nation whose existential integrity is wholly dependent on rationality.

But most interestingly, the majority of those who set out on this deleterious path are those who exalt this nation, whose love of country exists at such great heights, that even the meekest of criticism is grounds for treason. But as their decisions–their shameless, swift, and divisive repudiation of social liberalism and multiculturalism–have shown, veritable love of country does not always exist hand-in-hand with understanding of country, for those whose actions and beliefs have culminated in the rise of a man who poisons this nation without a second thought are themselves abandoning the very framework that built this nation for which they claim undying loyalty and affection.

These people are willing to trade a nation founded by philosophers who extensively advocated for ideas we today umbrella under the term “freedom” for one that exists as antithesis. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” has been scratched away for “Make America great again.” These people bought sequestration and lies wholesale, believing them to be the torch illuminating the heavens, a beacon of freedom, when in reality, they bought perversion. It is truly distressing that a devotion to country today manifests as the opposite of the very principals, the very ideas, on which it was created in the first place.

Featured image by Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

A Charade You Are

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s politically-charged 1977 album, Animals. Today also marks President Donald Trump’s first full day as President of the United States. I don’t believe in any kind of supernatural affinity existing in the universe, but if I did, I would have to assume that there was some kind of celestial magic afoot. If existence was dictated by screenwriters, this is one of those “great timing” moments that provide ample fluidity to progression.

But, alas, it is but mere coincidence, but a great coincidence nonetheless.

Animals is, for all intents and purposes, the most politically-mobile album in Pink Floyd’s catalogue, but is forgotten by most casual fans. It has the unfortunate distinction of being sandwiched between 1973’s Dark Side of the Moon and 1975’s Wish You Were Here on one side and 1979’s The Wall on the other. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like Animals was a busted record — it still sold remarkably and spurned a successful world tour (during which a spitting incident would provide inspiration for The Wall). But how often does one hear “Sheep” or “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” on radio, compared to “Money,” “Time,” “Comfortably Numb,” and “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2?”

But Animals was more aggressive than the albums it lays between. Described by NME as “one of the most extreme, relentless, harrowing and downright iconoclastic hunks of music to have been made available this side of the sun,” the album draws inspiration from George Orwell’s 1945 allegorical novella Animal Farm, but while the literature is a critique of Stalinism, Animals is a brutal indictment of capitalism — an “uncomfortable taste of reality in a medium that has become in recent years, increasingly soporific,” per Karl Davis of Melody Maker. Both anthropomorphize social classes into pigs, dogs, and sheep, but while Orwell’s novella ends on a bleak note — “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” — Pink Floyd’s album ends with the sheep (the mindless followers under the thumb of the oppressive pigs and greedy dogs) revolting and killing the others.

But the relevance of this album is not merely contained to its ruby anniversary.

On October 1, 2016, Roger Waters was performing a free concert in Zócalo Square, Mexico City. He delivered a rousing performance of “Pigs (Three Different Ones),” where he did the opposite of hide his feelings about the soon-to-be president-elect of the United States. Drawing from the very things that inspired him to write Animals in the first place, Waters’ performance of the side-two opener featured a backdrop that portrayed Donald Trump as one of the pigs, a psychedelic homage to the “joker” whose popularity personified the same vile zealousness of which Waters wrote Animals with galvanized contempt. The Donald’s mouth agape, superimposed with the word “charade,” the 11-and-a-half minute haymaker bled in images of the White House, Trump the bully vomiting cyan, and as if taking cues from the punk bands of the same time period, superimposing whore’s makeup on his face in an effort to deface and emasculate a man who, less than a week after the performance, would be at the center of an outed Access Hollywood video where he joked with George W. Bush’s cousin about how his celebrity allowed him to “grab [women] by the pussy.”

At the end of the performance, Trump quotes were thrown up on the backdrop in Spanish, making the coda even more powerful than just the swirling melodies, shrilled shredding, and the signature thump of Waters’ bass. It ends with:

“Trump eres un pendejo.”

Trump you are an asshole.

On the 40th anniversary of Animals, President Donald Trump got to work, signing a series of executive orders that stand to do more damage than provide benefit to the people they will impact. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which, to be fair, was more symbolic than anything (the deal is practically dead in Congress anyway). But the direct, vicious, and early nature of Trump’s executive order may blacken the United States internationally, as noted by Cornell University’s Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy:

“This abrupt action so early in the Trump administration puts the world on notice that all of America’s traditional economic and political alliances are now open to reassessment and renegotiation. This could have an adverse long-run impact on the ability of the U.S. to maintain its influence and leadership in world economic and political affairs.”

Mr. Trump also instituted a hiring freeze throughout the federal government on all non-military workers. The move eerily echoes the actions of former President Ronal Reagan, who also instituted a hiring freeze immediately after assuming office in 1981. President Trump made this hiring freeze part of his campaign, an action he would take to “drain the swamp.”

President Trump also placed his feet in the shoes of Republicans before him and refreshed the “Mexico City policy,” also known as the “global gag rule,” which stops United States taxpayer money from going to international family-planning organizations that offer abortion services to women, even if the United States’ money doesn’t actually pay for the abortive procedures. This move is significant, considering a bill very recently manifested in the House of Representatives that deems “life” to begin at the moment of fertilization in an effort to equate procuring an abortion as an act of murder and unravel the protections afforded to women under the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade. It’s an attempt to napalm a women’s right conservatives have spent decades trying to undo and comes at a time when the American conservative movement has been given a new breath of life by an extremist sect assimilating all who once tended the middle of the aisle and infecting the populous to the extent necessary to grant it firm control of Congress.

The “Mexico City policy” also eerily mirrors recent attempts by U.S. conservatives to undo Planned Parenthood.

Three executive orders, which effortlessly put millions of people in precarious situations, have been instituted with a stroke of a pen by a man who embodies the snobbish, oppressive ruling class in an album that was released 40 years ago to the day. I don’t believe in the supernatural, but even I will admit that this is one hell of a coincidence. But then again, should such a coincidence really be that intriguing? At the center of it is a man whose name could easily have been inserted into the side-two opener and followed by the following lyric:

Ha ha, charade you are.

Dear America, The Time Has Come to Hug Each Other

“Donald Trump has been elected the 45th President of the United States. Donald Trump has been elected the 45th President of the United States. Donald Trump has been elected the 45th President of the United States.” — Every single news outlet around the world

I am currently sitting in the Starbucks down the street from my apartment, trying to realize what have been, in effect, 36 hours of trying to put to words exactly how I feel about the election of Donald Trump to the presidency. I’m watching everyone here, baristas and patrons alike, the dressed and the disheveled, observing this microcosm of people for insight into how I want to address what may prove to be our nation’s most egregious electoral sin.

There is a man sitting adjacent to me, a black man, who may find himself subjected to the overt racism fueled by the election of Donald Trump. There is a woman across the lobby from me, holding hands with her girlfriend or wife, who may see their fight for equality torn asunder — their marriage voided — due to the election of Donald Trump. A Hispanic woman and her young child are waiting for their drink orders and the only reason I’m curious about the mother’s legal status is because I’m afraid she may be deported, leaving her child an orphan, because of the election of Donald Trump.

I’m not trying to sound like a self-righteous ass, but I have nothing to worry about. I’m white. I’m male. My demographic has not only been historically favored, but will likely also be favored by a Trump presidency.

And I have a big problem with that.

Part of what has prompted me to write about the state of affairs in the nation which I call home is not because of my own socio-economic suffering, but the suffering of others. I am worried about a Trump presidency not because of any kind of blowback I could experience, but because of the blowback that others may experience (who have a higher chance of experiencing).

I’m concerned for the women in my life, who have to live the next four years of their lives knowing their president is a man who has explicitly and unapologetically “grabs [women] by the pussy.”

I’m concerned for the people of color in my life, who have to live the next four years of their lives knowing their president is a man who has emboldened white supremacists.

I’m concerned for the Muslims in my life, who have to live the next four years of their lives knowing their president is a man who has explicitly and unapologetically criminalized their religion through rhetoric and possibly through future actions.

I’m concerned for the Hispanics in my life, who have to live the next four years of their lives knowing their president is a man committed to ripping their families apart and building a wall to keep them out.

I’m concerned for the LGBTQ people in my life, who have to live the next four years of their lives knowing that the progress made in administering to them the same rights everyone else has enjoyed, notably the right to matrimony, that they just received 18 months ago, is now in jeopardy of being taken away with extreme prejudice.

I’m concerned for everyone in my life who isn’t a white, heterosexual man — and that concern isn’t restricted to just the people I know. Everyone is someone in my life.

It would be easy, and maybe even cathartic, to figure out where to point fingers. The aforementioned emboldened bigots. The still-relevant political exasperation by young people (possibly made worse by the results of this election). The Electoral College. But while fingering blame toward whomever or whatever one feel is deserving of it may help now, it ultimately won’t do any good. Donald Trump wasn’t elected because of the racists. He wasn’t elected because of the Electoral College. He wasn’t even elected because of James Comey’s apparent partisan politics.

Donald Trump was elected because a way of life is being rendered extinct. And I’m not talking about the acceptability of casual racism or the importance placed on a morally-good, Godly community (though the latter is notable). I’m talking about the people who find themselves victims of progress.

Many of the people who voted for Trump didn’t do so between cross burnings and trips to Hobby Lobby to procure materials for “God Hates Fags” signs. Many of the people who voted for Trump did so because their jobs are vanishing, their checkbooks are too light to avoid sleepless nights, and their communities are changing in ways that throw kerosene on the flames of fear. I see people in this Starbucks who, from a quick glance, may fit this bill. Older white men who look haggard and beaten down by the stresses of the vanishing working class. Older white men who see their values (which in many cases are also their daddy’s values, their grandaddy’s values, and so on), religious and otherwise, not only disappearing, but demonized by what they incorrectly attribute to encroaching “political correctness.” Older white men who (incorrectly) see the cultural openness being promoted and realized by progressive ideologies as a threat to their security and their livelihood. While this isn’t an excuse for their prejudices, which ultimately fuel their decisions (like casting a vote for Donald Trump), it is more important to understand the anxiety that comes with changing times than to solely hold their feet to the coals.

One can still empathize with this fear while holding these people accountable for their decisions.

While I’m not making an effort to cast blame, the people of this nation did not, on the whole, vote for Donald Trump on Tuesday. 200 thousand more cast votes for Hillary Clinton, leaving her the victor in terms of popular vote. Direct democracy voted for Hillary Clinton. Representative democracy voted for Donald Trump. Sometimes that’s just the way it goes — in 2000, direct democracy voted for Al Gore and representative democracy voted for George W. Bush. But this is how the system works and it is improper (and honestly, hypocritical) to demonize the system when it doesn’t work in your favor and champion it when it does.

The election of Donald Trump is the last gasp of a dying culture in the United States, but that doesn’t mean we should rest on our laurels and just hope we’ll get it right next time. We need to focus on changing the culture that allowed Donald Trump to be elected and honestly, it starts with giving a damn. Donald Trump may be unstable in terms of his commitments, but he has made several positions very clear, once you sift away the narcissist rhetoric and the overuse of “okay?”

There will be people who suffer because of the Trump Administration and it is our job — not as liberals or progressives or conservatives or libertarians, or as Christians or atheists or Muslims or Jews, or as white or black or Latino or Asian, or as male or female, or rich or poor, or whatever — to understand that. Our obligation to others is to understand that bad things will happen and do everything in our power to ensure those blows are lessened, or if possible, those punches are kept from landing. We are only as strong as each other.

We need each other. A presidency is only four years (eight with the “rule of incumbency”). The divisions amongst ourselves last longer, if we let them.

Let’s start by giving each other a hug.

Featured image via Pixabay.