Breaking…
Corporate Media / Woke Inc. Achieve Peak Supervillain.
My voter registration is “Unenrolled”. My world view on cultural and political events has been informed largely outside the feedback loop of Corporate Media, Pop Culture, and the political ideologies that surround me as a musician from Massachusetts. This has been the case for close to 30 years. On top of that….despite having had some serious personal struggles both in my past and currently… I’ve spent my 55 years as a pretty happy guy. My love of playing the drums and being in bands is a centering force in my life. This has been the case since I was in Junior High. The peace in that centering force is so powerful that I do not need to be actively engaged in a musical endeavor to access it. It has never abated. I married Julie, the first woman I fell in love with… and we have two awesome kids. Family life is not always easy. Nothing of serious worth ever is. But I have endless gratitude and awareness of these amazing gifts. In other words… I have a lot of deeply meaningful things in my life.
So….who cares? Why is this important and how on earth does it relate to Glenn Greenwald’s assessment of the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict? Well… I feel that in no small measure, the path of my life has insulated me from becoming the rage machine that our current Political and Media Culture want us all to be distracted by and ultimately embody. This is not to say that I don’t have strong opinions and core principles. I do. Or that I’m immune from experiencing frustration. I’m not. I’ll offer unvarnished assessments in private conversation…but in the public square and on social media I choose my words carefully. I like the spectrum of opinion to be wide ranging and vast. From “fringe” to “fringe’ and everything in between. I voted for Donald Trump twice and believe that his Inauguration Speech, his first address to the United Nations, and subsequent manifestation of the tenants therein through policy were a long overdue Pro Individual, Pro America, Anti War, Anti Identity Politics, and Anti-Globalist shock to the system. A system that was drifting incrementally closer to Brussels and Davos and further away from Philadelphia and The Heartland. When he campaigned… the entrenched Establishments of both major political parties, 90% of the media, and all the usual unserious characters in pop culture united against him. This solidified my support. In late Summer 2015 a family member asked me in a room full of people if I thought he could win. I said “Yes”. No one agreed. They laughed. Living in Massachusetts and being a musician, I have been in many rooms over the years where people assume that everyone present is of the same mindset. In these situations, I’ve essentially been unknowingly mocked, derided, and cartooned openly. This was force multiplied in the Trump era. If addressed directly I will respond, otherwise…I keep quiet.
I’ve watched people who I love, respect, and would trust with my kids sink to the gutter and become unrecognizable over politics and ideology over the past 20 years. More recently I’ve seen alleged adults in the media and the public square savaging teenagers like Nick Sandman and Kyle Rittenhouse within minutes of their respective incidents/stories unfolding. I see these reflexive emotional outbursts…these immediate lurches to a venomous contempt prior to investigation not as serious political positions…but as a soul sickness. A sad and desperate cry for attention. This soul sickness is being actively institutionalized by people intent on tearing Our Country apart. As a Free Speech absolutist and one who sees Identity Politics as a cancer to Civil Society, a few voices have been clarion to me during this time of great polarization. A divide, by the way, that’s not nearly as wide on the ground as it is on television or over the internet. Old school Liberals/Leftists like Glenn Greenwald for whom the block got too hot and the echo chamber too iron clad on the Progressive/Woke left…have separated themselves from the mob and thrived on alternative platforms. When one has to go to Rumble to get unedited content of what Glenn or even Bill Mahar are saying…there’s definitely a cult of ideology afoot. That cult will ultimately consume itself….and is in the process of doing so. But not before purposefully stoking massive amounts of division and ill will within the population. Old guard and new firebrands in the Black Conservative space have also been an oasis of sanity in a world where soulless jackals in the media and politics have successfully neutered the terms “Racism” and “White Supremacy”.
I love America. It’s celebration of the Sovereignty of The Individual is bedrock. My travels in Europe…including in the former “East Germany” less than two years after the wall came down solidified my awareness and gratitude for the amazing luck of being born here. I roll my eyes at the “we suck” crowd. The people who reflexively drag on their homeland while they sit in the lap of luxury unparalleled in human history. No Man or Country is perfect. But some perspective and gratitude would go a measure towards cooling the temperature and curbing the addiction to doom.
The forces currently trying to divide and conquer in The Beltway and most of the Corporate Press have the bullhorn. They are loud. But they are also childish, petulant, ungrateful, and ruled by emotion. The members of the Jury in the Rittenhouse case were not swayed by their noise. Every syllable of Glenn’s analysis here resonated with me. If you’re reading this and think the polar opposite…I love it. Have at it. There’s nothing more American than that. If reading this triggers you to consider me persona non grata…that’s fine too.
I love and accept my friends and family members with a different political worldview. And that’s good… because it’s most of the people I know.
Our Country and the overwhelming majority of it’s people are kind, generous, and good. The Founders advocated an aggressive and Free Press to keep power in check. Most of the Legacy Media have abandoned their post and become stenographers. Operating hand in glove with a corrupt and thoroughly isolated Beltway culture. But they are ultimately too small and self absorbed to succeed in breaking the ties that bind us.
The American people always find a way to shock, surprise, amaze, and perplex. It’s what we do.
This period is unnerving and dark. But truth is Sovereign and Americans always find our way to the light.
Check out Glenn Greenwald’s deep dive analysis here….
