By Eric Le Roy
Content 18+ I did myself a permanent favor in 2009. I left the United States forever. Now don’t get me wrong; I am no fan of Russia either. In fact, I am not much of a fan of anybody. What I have witnessed in recent years is the level of hatred among the people of the earth rising to levels that will be difficult to sustain much longer. All signs point to an explosion.
Yesterday, there was an attempt on the life of Donald Trump. He survived. Inadvertently the would-be assassin probably added to Trump’s electability. But other people were killed. This is just another example – as if we needed one – of a nation that is completely out of control.
Of course, this isn’t unprecedented for the United States in terms of violence. The nation was founded by convicts, adventurers, and religious fanatics, so it should come as no surprise that these antecedents remain in play to this day. I don’t need to give anyone a history lesson, but anybody with half an education knows that ‘peace and tranquility’ have never been words to describe America. And, as recently as the 1960s, we witnessed the assassination of four great men: the two Kennedys, Martin Luther King, and Malcom X. The famous Civil Rights worker Medgar Evers was among the sacrificed.
Mass murderers and serial killers proliferate in this violent nation and have for a long time.
Yet…I would still say that it’s different now. It’s worse, if that is possible. And the reason I say this is because of the frenzied level of hatred that now exists. The endless name-calling. The deliberate and manipulative conjuring up of past injustices as if they happened yesterday to pour more gasoline on an already gasping bonfire. The hyperactive use of words such as Nazi, fascist, racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamaphobic, toxic, ‘hater’, genocide, slavery, and ‘plantation’ to build rage among people who see themselves – sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly – as victims. Rational discussion becomes impossible. Woke. MAGA. On and on it goes.
I can truly say, though now I watch it from the pleasant and safe distance of Bulgaria, that I have never seen the United States in worse shape. Hatred indeed. I have never seen the likes of it. Moreover, the ‘in-your-face’ times we live in, the age where ‘anything goes’, where shameless exhibitionism is part of self-promotion, where cyberspace crimes abound, fake news proliferates, and where words that used to have meaning, such as ‘neighborhood’, ‘community’ and ‘family’ have been reduced to idiotic corporate and tabloid mush – this has led to a society full of maniacs with a microphone. Every nutcase has a platform now. The smelliest fart can go ‘viral’ if it comes out of the ass of some cunning fuck who knows how to sell the stench to mass media.
In the West, the media is to blame for a lot of it.. In the Russian dystopia of today, the opposite is true of course. Nobody can say anything that doesn’t parrot the endless lies of the State. In Europe, the UK, the US, and elsewhere, the media has gone tabloid and it caters to an audience of freaks, losers, malcontents, and nitwits who get their news from TikTok and Social Media. This is the main difference that I see between Now and the Past, and, as an aging man, I have experience of many years of watching the world unfold.
In the past, people were just as rotten as they are today, but they simply didn’t have enough ammunition. The discontented nobodies of society could come up to you and rob or kill you, but they didn’t have enough firepower to shoot up a whole school or concert hall. Now they do. Crackpots were everywhere, then as now, but they didn’t have access. Everybody wasn’t a fly on the wall, and the real loonies didn’t have podcasts on YouTube.
Of course, the other side of the story – ‘citizen journalism’ etc, – like communism – works in theory but not in reality. And the reason for that is simple: many people do not read, do not think, do not question…instead they just gobble up what is trending and start spouting off. And the more outrageous, the better. The media naturally loves this because it thrives on ‘controversy’. Anything the media can do to stir up trouble, it will do because that is what sells tickets. The media, no less than the average street corner drug dealer, caters to and promotes human weakness, human gullibility, human greed, and the kind of hatred that only the homo sapien is capable of. In short, the mainstream media in America is riddled with biases, incompetent reports, and cynical editors, most of whom have a distinct political agenda. It is CRAP.
Added to that,, we have sheer mindless Sensationalism. Think about the so-called ‘paparazzi’, for instance. Can you think of a pack of total creeps to match these fuckless schmucks? Can you imagine sneaking out on a raft into the sea to try to snap a shot of some starlet spread-eagled on a yacht? Or standing outside the door of some celebrity hoping to film them without their make-up, thus revealing them as crinkled, wrinkled old toads or alcoholic has-beens?. Well, that’s how these guys live. If I were Jack Nicholson or someone like that, I would deliberately stand on my balcony and piss over the side. The scandal mongers would eat it up. Or drink it up.
As I read today the fallout of the assassination attempt, I encounter the usual mixture of hysteria and stupidity – chock full of partisan politics – that one has come to expect. There are, it should be noted, many reasonable and articulate comments, and I play no favorites here. I am not pushing a political agenda. But when you read post after post it becomes more and more obvious what I am dealing with. Frothing cretins and gasping dumbfucks.
One of the worst of the inevitable offshoots of all this is the inevitable conspiracy theories. Biden paid off the secret service and set it all up. Trump staged it to enhance his campaign. And on and on. Let me tell you something: conspiracy theorists rank among the most odious slime bags on the planet. They can NEVER accept that we live in a fucked up world where shit happens. No-sir-ee Bob. Somebody is backstage pulling the strings. The hidden psychology behind these hapless goofballs is of course their desperate need for the cosmos to make sense. Things don’t just happen. No, it’s always the Illuminati, the Deep Think Club, or everyone from George Soros to Rasputin to Popeye the Sailor who is really doing the job.
I, for one, am inclined to believe that there is an orchestrated effort behind certain things. The ‘Insurrection’ at the White House in support of Trump was organized. But so was the crowd at the border during the early part of Trump’s presidency. That mob of people didn’t just suddenly pull up in their truck and cars. Most were indigent. They were brought there because the money paid for their transportation. I also believe that the ‘spontaneous’ George Floyd riots across the country were a joint effort. I believe that US campuses were targeted for the pro-Palestine demonstrations because everybody knows that students are full of pseudo idealistic piss-and-vinegar and are easily manipulated. But I would argue that there is very sound reasoning to support my ideas in these areas. That does NOT mean that I am right. Maybe I am full of shit.
Nevertheless, it is extremely annoying to find that someone can come up with a conspiracy theory for Everything. According to these people, there is not a football match that has ever been played that wasn’t fixed. Never a moment of spontaneous joy that was not worked out in advance. There was never an outcome of any kind that wasn’t orchestrated in some back room by the Secret Club. Nor does it help that in America, so much is fake. America is the kind of place where people like Madonna, Miley Cyrus, Don King, and Vince McMahon are the big winners.
Now with the colossal circus that passes as an American Presidential election looming just several months away, the fruitcakes on both sides, eyes bulging with hatred, itchy fingers on the trigger, are right in their element. Let the Games Begin, even as we hope against hope that the Islamic screwballs don’t murder half the the people at the Paris Olympics. I am not optimistic. Someone will probably try their luck with Trump again. Biden? Well, probably his enemies just hope he will fall down the stairs and break his neck. The America of 2024. Photograph the memories, suckers. Selfies included.
