Twenty Years of Brutally Honest Commentary
It’s hard to believe, but this Friday, April 1st, 2016, will
mark twenty years of online commentary.
I started my original website on America Online’s server as a repository
of articles that were not previously published.
I had hoped to use that to eventually become a syndicated columnist, but
obviously that didn’t happen. Instead, I
focused on just doing articles my own online column and hoped that someday
enough people would read it and start paying attention to what I had to say.
Well, that did happen to some extent.
I got enough attention to work for two online radio stations. I picked up some good friends and a few
devoted readers in that time. And I’m
glad to have that, even if I wish those numbers were larger by at least four or
five digits.
Twenty years gives me an interesting perspective of things both in the
online world and in the real world. I
was here doing online commentary before FoxNews and MSNBC even got started. I was here when Sean Hannity was still
struggling with syndicated radio and Bill O’Reilly was doing tabloid TV
shows. I was here when Rush Limbaugh was
really the only big name in the conservative media, Dennis Miller was funny, and
George Stephanopoulos was a mouthpiece for Bill and Hillary Clinton in the White
House. Come to think of it, I don’t
think George ever stopped doing that, which makes him just as much a constant
as I am.
I was here fighting for the Internet back when Bill and Hillary Clinton
were fighting to have it censored. I was
one of the many plaintiffs that took the Communications Decency Act all the way
to the U.S. Supreme Court and won. Yes,
because of folks like me, you can see all of Kim Kardashian she’ll ever share
with the world, not to mention all of the trials and tribulations involving her
whole extended family. You’re welcome.
But going back to George for a minute, it’s funny how some things never
change. Twenty years ago it was
JenniCam, and today it’s social media. Twenty
years ago, I was fighting to keep Bill and Hillary Clinton from censoring the
Internet, and now Hillary is
demanding that the government does just that all over again. Twenty years ago, I was a single nice guy
with the social life of a slug... and today I’m still a single nice guy with
the social life of a slug but now with grey hair and even less of a chance to
make things right. Twenty years ago, I
was afraid that I was missing out on the American Dream. Today I know for certain that it not only snubbed
me, but that it really is just a “dream”.
I wish I could say that things have been getting better and better in
previous two decades, but let’s get brutally honest here... things really haven’t. If anything, things have gotten worse.
Yes, personal freedoms have expanded to some large extent. The gay, lesbian, and transgender communities
struggled for inclusion and acceptance in our society, and they got it at least
in the courts, including the court of public opinion. Twenty years ago, the masses were petrified
that same-sex couples would dare to exist in their neighborhoods. Today, they enjoy legal recognition thanks to
the same judicial body that liberated the Internet.
We’re allowed to see what we want thanks to freedom on the Internet, but
at the same time, we’re facing a level of repression that is worse than it was
twenty years ago. Playboy Magazine, the
symbol of sexual freedom for several generations, ceased to exist at the end of
2015 and was replaced by a repressive fraud.
Even the infamous mansion is up for sale. Software apps now come with no-nudity
clauses. Today we hear about “slut-shaming”
and “body-shaming” for people who dare to show something sexy. And those who are deemed “brave” and “stand
up to the haters” are the ones that ultimately show nothing that can’t be seen
on TV without blurring and pixilation.
Perhaps the biggest example of our “liberated” hypocrisy is that there is
not only a cable TV series called “Naked and Afraid” which shows neither, but
an “uncensored” version that is still censored!
For all of the talk about bullying that we’ve made in recent years, there’s
still nothing that can be done about it.
Bullies still get away with their crimes. They still hide behind and are protected by the
various social institutions. Worse,
anytime you try to do something about it, you’re accused to being the very
thing you are trying to stop!
We’ve certainly moved backward as a species, and that is because of what
happened on September 11, 2001. I warned
people then that we would go backward socially because of it, and I have been
proven right. The nightmare dystopia
from right out of George Orwell’s books is coming true. We’ve turned “Nineteen Eighty-Four” from a
cautionary tale into a political checklist.
The corporate and political elite are our “Animal Farm” “pigs” and the “dogs”
are the ones barking on FoxNews and talk radio about “national security”.
We say that “Big Brother can’t watch us like in the books”, but not only
is our government doing just that, but we’re welcoming it and demanding even
more of it. Malls and businesses and
street corners have security cameras.
Our own cellphones tell people where we go and what we do. In the name of “convenience”, we’re being
coaxed into putting everything we deem personal and important into “the cloud”
so we can access it through our phones and our tablets and laptops, except it’s
also where hackers and various governments can access without warrants.
Yes, America elected the first African-American President, and that was
great, but we’re still a far cry from saying that race relations are any better
in America. We went from a President
that was impeached to one that had to be decided by the Supreme Court, to one
that was openly insulted on the floor of the U.S. House and challenged on
everything up to and including the time of day.
Twenty years ago I warned about religious extremism, only it wasn’t Islam
that we should be worried about. Today,
that same extremism is doing everything in their power to shove their faith
down America’s collective throat and up its collective rear. Christian extremists used to quietly control
the GOP. Today they are the very vocal
backers of one of the major contenders for President of the United States, and
are busy shoving their crusader laws into effect in towns, counties, and states
all across America.
The Jim Crow laws are coming back, only now instead of legalizing
race-based discrimination, it’s religious-based. Georgia has been pushing for their
falsely-named “Religious Freedom Act”, which is – as of this column’s date – on
Governor Nathan “Raw” Deal’s desk. North
Carolina railroaded
in their own Jim Crow law this past week.
Last year a Kentucky
clerk violated her own oath of office and even spent the weekend in jail
because she refused to follow the law concerning same-sex marriages, and the
Christian Dominionists not only cheered her on, but are doing everything they
can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
But... we’re not supposed to be concerned about these things, are
we? No, because Islam is supposedly “worse”.
Political fascism is coming back into vogue after almost a hundred years. And just in time too, because the people that
remember what Mussolini and his friends did in Europe are dying out, or else
are too senile to recognize the wheel turning back around.
Don’t know what I’m talking about? Have you met Donald Trump? Be careful about what you say around him and
his supporters. You might get
sucker-punched for it and then be blamed for “starting it”. The only thing missing from his group are the
black shirts. But I can see Trump seriously owning that idea too, especially
since black would make the gold-colored “Trump” brand stand out even brighter.
And just when you think we couldn’t bring Germany’s sins back, let me
introduce you to Senator Ted Cruz, the other GOP contender for President, who
wants to put Muslim
neighborhoods under a police state for “our own good”. Oh, and that’s just scratching the surface when
it comes to that slimy weasel-faced Canadian-born hypocrite from Texas.
Twenty years ago we reviled at the demise of the Cold War. Today, we’re pretty much war-wacky and we
want to start it all over again. And it’s
the same players too... Russia, China, North Korea... only now we’ve substituted
a whole religious sect for Cuba. And all
in the name of votes. All in the name of
military appropriations. All in the name
of political power and media attention.
And in case you’re still unconvinced that we are regressing socially in
the past two decades, then I want you to look at our economy.
Twenty years ago, the United States entered a technological boom with the
Internet. Yes, venture capitalists were
spend-crazy with investment money, and, yes, it would take about twenty years
before some of the pie-in-the-sky ideas of that time would come true. But even with the economic bust following the
bubble, there was still a sense of optimism about our economic futures.
But during that time, I’ve also noticed a change in our economy. The unwritten agreement between corporations
and its employees was being violated.
Instead of raises and bonuses for employees that would keep up with the cost
of living, corporate execs gave less, kept the difference as higher profits, and
then gave themselves obscene raises and bonuses as a reward. And they relied on the banks to give “cheap
credit” to the masses as a financial opiate.
Buy a house, refinance, use the equity like an ATM. Spend like there’s no tomorrow “or else the terrorists
win.” And if it all falls apart? Well it’s not “their” fault that you’re so
reckless, is it?
We’re still struggling to recover from the Great Recession, despite the
claims from the current White House tenants that it’s over with. One dominant party want to pretend that it’s
over with, and the other dominant party wants us to do it all over again. Remember that the definition of insanity is
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And nobody wants to discuss a third option
that has always been there. Because that
would break the doublespeak the two dominant parties have been using to lord
over us.
You can understand, then, why I’ve gotten a little more bitter in these
past few years.
As an online commentator, I see the world changing, and it’s been for the
worse. And I know that there is still a
part of me that hopes that things will get better. There’s just that little bit that says that
things always get worse before it gets better, like the old songs go. It was that sense of optimism that led me to
become an online commentator in the first place. I just hope it won’t take another twenty
years before we get to it... because, quite frankly, I don’t think a lot of us will
be alive by then to see it.
And that, by the way, is not an April Fool’s Day joke.
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