Blog: They Have Already Damned You.

He folks, welcome back! As with last week, my initial plan for THIS week was to write a travel blog about New York. Also like last week I had another topic swirling & twirling around my brain that I felt pressing to write this week. Once more, also like last week, this blog will be a serious one, if the title alone hadn’t tipped you off to that fact already. Trigger warning I suppose to those of you who are dealing with religious trauma, post election fallout, murder/killing, religious themes, & on the flip side of that coin, may be upset by the contents of this blog. Today we will be talking vertical vs. horizontal morality.

I have had, over the last week, across numerous social media platforms & conversations, the notion or idea of vertical vs horizontal morality pop up & it actually, I think, helps to explain how certain groups can vote or feel the way that they do based on belief & history. I know, for myself, I have struggled with the idea of those who claim to live under the banner of “love thy neighbor as thyself” going to the voting booth & doing the exact opposite often condemning their ‘neighbor’ to harder lives, deportation, lack of access to healthcare, higher tax rates, or downright voting to strip their rights away. Taking that “what you do unto the ‘least’ of these, you do unto me” & really just punting it through the proverbial field goal. One creator, Rachel Klinger Cain, put it simply by saying the following:

“They are never going to care about our suffering, because they are okay with our damnation.”

— Rachel Klinger Cain

This immediately struck me & got the wheels of my brain turning. She goes on to explain further stating:

“So many of us right now are sitting in the space of desperately trying to explain it to them in a way that induces the empathy. Like if we can just find the right words, if we can say it the right way, provide the right evidence, remind them that we’re human, then we can get through to them. That they’ll see what they’ve done. That they’ll see what’s coming. That they’ll be willing to stand with us when we need it, but none of that is going to work with people who have already accepted that we are going to Hell. They believe that we are going to Hell, a place of eternal conscious torment, & they don’t stand with us. They take the side of the God who would do it. They claim that they love us, but they’re fine with our eternal conscious torment & they’re fine with our tormentor.”

— Rachel Klinger Cain

Now. I know that’s a lot to digest. I’m sure for some of you reading it stirred up a lot of emotions or feelings one way or the other. I challenge you to sit in those & understand what about that paragraph makes you feel that way & why you feel that way.

I will say, to my personal extent, that paragraph feels a bit atheistic & I can’t begrudge Rachel for feeling that way. Though it doesn’t necessarily align with my personal beliefs, it does align with my personal feelings & experiences around the majority of those within the evangelical base. I know the retort to that is going to be the “a few bad apples ruin the batch” argument, but I think with most things around that sentiment, Maren Morris was correct in saying “The rot at the roots is the root of the problem” (I know she’s talking specifically about the country music industry here but I’m borrowing the analogy). The bushel isn’t being contaminated by a few bad apples, I think, for the most part, the ‘good' apples are the exception from a tree that has taught us how easy it is to condemn another human being for living a life that is different than our own.

I can just hear the people clicking out of my website from this one already. I again, challenge you to bear with me going forward & really dissect the way this is making you feel. If something challenges the narrative you believe if is often a good idea to figure out why & then figure out whether or not what is stated is factual or not & reevaluate from there.

I’d like to get into the meat of this & really discuss the “why” of all of this? Why do people who spend almost every weekend being taught a book of love statistically go out & vote for candidates who perpetuate hate, division, scapegoating, gluttony, greed, & selfishness? Because of vertical morality.

I’m going to go back to Rachel here in a second because I think the discourse happening on her page outlines the differences in the two types of morality perfectly specifically using the example of murder/killing. With vertical morality you have a system of morals not build on empathy or common understanding, but instead built on authority. This idea makes the beliefs of those who post things along the lines of “well, how will children learn morals if they aren’t taught The Bible?” make so much more sense.

You see, within the discussion on her page, she is met with a man who confronts this idea by saying “Really how can something that created everything kill & slaughter if he can just ‘uncreate’ everything.” It’s this idea of ownership, that if Almighty God decided to undo creating that He has the authority to do so simply because He created it.

Using this specific example she lays out the following:

“Under a vertical moral system murder is not wrong because it harms somebody, it is wrong because you don’t have the authority to do it, but that also means that IF you have the authority to do it, you can to it. This is the problem with a vertical moral system. This is why they become violent so quickly, because all they have to do to convince themselves it’s okay to kill someone, is to convince themself that they’ve been given the authority to do it by God. ”

— Rachel Klinger Cain

She goes on to give examples throughout history of this, of times in which Christianity or Christian Nationalism have sparked violent movements that led to countless deaths or allowed them to watch from the sidelines unbothered because of the authority of God or those whom he has ‘ordained’ as having the authority (i.e. kings, queens, presidents, popes, etc.). This also goes outside of Christianity to other theologies that implant vertical morality & even include the deification & idolization of leaders. Some examples that include, but are not limited to; the Holocaust, the Crusades, slavery, colonialism, manifest destiny, the AIDs crisis, the Manson Murders, Gaza.

On the other side of that morality system lies the horizontal. This way of belief says that murder is wrong, not because you don’t have the authority, but because it causes harm to another human being.

“It’s not about authority, it’s about harm. When you have a horizontal moral system then you are criticizing a god who would kill people, because it doesn’t matter if that god is bigger or stronger. Might does not make right. It doesn’t matter if He claims to have the authority, He’s still causing harm. But under that vertical moral system, might makes right. It’s authoritarianism. & when their religion is authoritarian then that means their moral system is authoritarian. & when their moral system is authoritarian it will trickle down into all kinds of other beliefs including their politics, including who they vote for. & if they believe that God as ordained it, if they believe that the ultimate authority figure says it’s okay, then it doesn’t matter who it harms. Appeals to empathy will not work, because they don’t get their morals from empathy, they get it from authority. They’re authoritarians.”

— Rachel Klinger Cain

Again, a bit more atheistic than I’d probably put it myself, but I think the point still stands.

Another creator, Theologian Ciarra Jones, piggybacks off of Rachel’s points to discuss a lecture that she gives every years at UC Berkley around Race, Religion, & Public Policy.

“I always tell students when working with Christian communities that the stakes are different. We’re not talking about systemic inequality & its impacts, we’re talking about heaven & Hell. Salvation & damnation. This focus on sin & punishment, salvation & damnation, actually cuts off most fundamentalist Christians from normative processes of empathy. Fundamentalist Christian communities have constructed God in a way that cosigns & corroborates the existence of systemic inequality.”

— Professor Ciarra Jones

She then lays out an excellent example around LGBTQ rights using the following:

“If I go to a fundamentalist pastor & I say “you voting on anti-LGBTQ policies harms LGBTQ people’s safety,” they would say “well queerness itself is a sin & if a queer person wasn’t living in this way, then they would experience systemic inequality.””

— Professor Ciarra Jones

I would interject here but I think the way she continues on is so eloquently stated that I’m just going to continue to quote her here!

“We have constructed God as a God that insulates power, that insulates systemic inequality & that is one the side of those who are enacting harm on marginalized communities. This makes fundamentalist Christians impervious to critiques about how their theology is related to our policy landscape.

One of the most common Bible verse I heard growing up in fundamentalist, pentecostal churches “we are called to be in the world & not of it,” means that Christians start to bifurcate themselves from non-christians. They almost cut off their humanity & empathy towards non-christian communities or towards those they believe are living in a type of sin.

This means for Christians, for example, voting on ‘pro-life’ policy, even when ‘pro-life’ policy harms particularly women of color. There isn’t any empathy towards these communities because the idea is ‘I am voting on the side of righteousness’ & in fact my ability to separate myself from humanity & vote on policies in the way that God is asking me to do is a sign of my own unique Christian divinity. It’s a sign of my commitment to God. So separating themselves from their empathy actually ends up being a sign of their commitment to God.”

— Professor Ciarra Jones

I know this week was a heavy one, I know this blog also may seem like I’m over here doing the most to shit on Christians when in reality I consider myself among them as so many of us who are begging for your empathy do. We read the book. We were taught the lessons. We took them to heart & somewhere along the line that was lost amongst what I would say, & what statistics would say, are the vast majority.

Additionally, I have seen so many postings this last week & a half around the idea of “I don’t know how to convince you to care about other people” so I wanted to weigh in with the things that I learned from these two amazing female creators. They helped me to understand why the last eight years of begging friends & family not to vote the way that they do despite the damage it does not only to me, someone they claim to love, but also other communities at large have clearly gone exorbitantly unheard. Appeals using examples & proof go unheeded & unnoticed because we lack the ultimate authority of what they have decided is moral or is not.

They are not going to stand up for a right or a community that they think or have convinced themselves is sinful, no matter the amount of harm it does to the lives of their fellow human beings because the belief is that they do not have the authority to make that call, God does, & what God says (translation mishaps & political alterations included) is the ultimate scale of law & justice to which they weigh their vote, not your lives & the ways in which it may harm you.

I hope you have a fantastic week,

Much love as always,

-C

“It cannot be denied that too often the weight of the Christian movement has been on the side of the strong & powerful & against the weak & the oppressed. This despite the gospel.”

— Jesus & The Disinherited by Howard Therman as presented by Professor Ciarra Jones

Blog: In All Honesty, I'm Terrified.

In all honesty I’m not really sure where to start with this. Initially my plan for this week was to do a New York City travel blog, but given the nature of & the events of the week doing so feels dismissive & entirely subversive of the way that so many, my self included feel. I then contemplated not doing a blog at all, but I’m sitting with this incredibly palpable bag of emotions & hurt & I felt the need to come on & express that here with you all. I don’t know what form that will take or what path this blog will end up going on, as at the moment the tangents in my brain are fighting for dominance. I guess my goal in all of this is to make those of you out there who, let’s face it, probably have checked out &/or aren’t going to read this at all, understand a little bit more of how a lot of us who find ourselves in communities deeply effected by the results of Tuesday’s election feel & on the other side of that coin, show those of you who find yourselves in a state of deep mourning & pain feel seen & heard. I am here to express my pain & my undeniable fear of what if probably to come. I’m going to start by relaying all of this to myself & my personal sphere, because let’s face it, that’s what I know best.

I am someone with a deep understanding of policy & politics. I typically know who is saying, doing, promoting, regressing, whatever in most of the chambers & branches of The US government. I got this way because at the turn of 2016 I found myself with limited knowledge of anything that had transpired or anything that was going to transpire around the election that had just occurred & I regretted that sorely. I then spent what has been the last eight years deeply engaged in the ongoings & inner workings of the government because I never again wanted to feel like I wasn’t in ‘the know.’ The frustration part of that is that I then had friends & family members come to me with political questions that were quickly dismissed when the answers didn’t fit their narrative for what their specific party or belief on an issue was or is. Additionally, my upset when damaging policy came down the pipeline was met with patronization & deemed too emotionally driven or “just what I believe” instead of being deeply rooted in fact & statistics. I was told I was over reacting, or the topic was changed to other unrelated policy altogether, or it devolved into outright gaslighting. So, following the results of 2020, I receded. My family, friends, & acquaintances seldom heard about my politics because it had become clear to me that despite knowing leagues more about them than others, my intelligence, interest, passion, & knowledge were an annoyance that did little, if anything, to move the needle of what had been deeply engrained in their belief system; no matter how bat shit or rooted in propaganda, wishful thinking, outright racist/heteronormative/unscientific/regressive/xenophobic/etc those beliefs were/are.

Turning the page to this year. I don’t think, compared to previous elections, I was as vocally outspoken on the interwebs as I have been in the past, & maybe that was my mistake. No politics were brought up to my family, unless they were brought up to me, because I knew it was wasted breath because as the post that’s going around this last week so lovingly says “I don’t know how to convince you care about other people.”

Election day was horrible for me, even before the results started rolling in I was anxious to the point of it making me sick. I think in total I slept around 2-3 hours that night, waking up as so many of us did around 4 AM with an ultimate sense of dread even before peaking at my phone. From there my anxiety grew & also gave way to severe hurt & depression because I knew what was coming down the pipeline. I knew where we were headed & I saw the cataclysm & damage like a tidal wave barring down on all of us, whether those who voted for this want to see & accept that or not.

I had at least hoped that if Trump was reelected, despite the myriad of reasons he is beyond unsuitable for the presidency a first, much less a second time, that the legislative branch of the government would at least remain as a safeguard to the atrocities to be passed down. My hope was & has been since extinguished & the reality of the collision course we’re on rushed over me & sunk me for days. I instantly started research into expatriating.

I’m sorry if I lost you on that last sentence, I’m sorry if, to you, that seems too extreme or like I’m being a ‘sore loser,’ but I’m going to walk you through my reasonings & try to make you see why that’s where I landed. Additionally, this is my blog, my feelings, my life. Yes? My feelings & motivations are my own. Please bear with me.

I’m going to start talking policy which is typically where I start losing people, especially if that policy does not align with your inherent understanding. Again, please bear with me & have an open mind, a little empathy, & try to understand. We’re going to start out talking about (hold! hold! hold!) Roe V Wade & Project 2025.

I’ve laid out my arguments in favor of Roe many a time. It is not just a case that allowed for abortion but also granted women the right to bodily autonomy. Its overturning has been detrimental to the health of women across the country & continues to escalate in that direction. I don’t think that states legalizing the right to abortion will end up mattering unfortunately & I think that the Trump era nationwide ban is on the horizon. BUT I’m not here to talk specifically about Roe, but am instead here to talk about the precedent that it set within the conservative majority Supreme Court.

Roe V Wade was a ruling brought about through right to privacy. It is the same avenue that cases like Obergefell V Hodges used to legalize same sex marriage, the same avenue that Griswold V Connecticut used to allow married couples rights to contraceptive & later Eisenstadt V Baird used to allow unmarried couples right to contraceptive. It is the same exact avenue that Lawrence V Texas used to make sodomy laws illegal & Loving V Virginia used to instate the legitimacy of interracial marriages. All of these items used the same path of ‘personal privacy’ as the vehicle for which to get each of these respective issues legalized or decriminalized. Then came the overturning of Roe, what the Supreme Court has hinted at & outright spoken about being the first of these rulings to fall.

If right to privacy falls, & many of those statues with it, same sex couples, interracial couples, non-married (or even married) couples engaging in protected sex, will all be considered criminal almost overnight. Sounds archaic, I know, because it is & that’s just the highly insinuated Supreme Court side of things. Let’s shift lenses to Project 2025.

Project 2025 is a plan for a conservative held federal government that has been laid down by the vast majority of the right wing conglomerates out there. The Heritage Foundation, the AFA, the Claremont Institute, Moms for Liberty, etc etc etc. It was disavowed by Donald Trump after his initial endorsement of the project because it polled as incredibly unpopular, even amongst conservatives. A lot of those on both sides of the aisle were not overly concerned about the instating of Project 2025 because there would of course be “checks & balances” within the government, which of course holding all branches of the government, there are none. His allies have since stated, post win, that Project 2025 is & was the plan all along. Shocker.

So what lives within the policies of Project 2025? Let’s list a few shall we? Dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency (bye bye safe guards on clean air & water), dismantling the Department of Education (deuces special education programs), end no fault divorce, ban contraceptives (see supreme court section), eliminate worker unions & OSHA regulations, end the Affordable Care Act (what allows millions of Americans to have healthcare), end climate protections & re-incentivize the fossil fuel industry, end marriage equality (see supreme court), defund the FBI & Homeland Security, end birthright citizenship, eliminate the FDA (cuz who needs their drugs tested & regulated?), eliminate NOAA (where 99% of our weather data comes from), end civil rights & DEI programs, ban books (anything ‘non-christian’ this also includes books about slavery), ban African American & gender studies at ALL levels of education (including colleges), cut Medicare, cut Social Security, raise the retirement age, provide additional tax breaks for the 1%, increase taxes for the working class, end school lunch programs, leaving NATO (say hello to the Russian invasion of Europe), the list goes on & on & on & now, there is nothing in the way to stop it.

I know that may sound extreme, it may sound a bit like fear mongering too, & I also understand that there will (hopefully) be people within the Republican party who stand up & prevent these things from happening, but if 2016-2020 were any indication, I don’t think I have much faith in that. I challenge you to think of the generational harm that all of this will do even if half of that list is accomplished. Even if a forth is accomplished. We have been steered into a maelstrom to which there is no course correction & those who were out here telling you all “I told you so” will be the one who pay the price the dearest for this folly.

I want to touch on a few more things before I leave you with my closing remarks. Those being what Trump has promised to make the incepting blow of his term; tariffs, immigrants, & trans individuals.

First tariffs. Trump plans to impose a 60% tariff on any goods coming from China & a 10% tariff on all other goods coming from other countries. Where do we get most of our tech from? China. Where do we get most of our steel from? China? Who pays for the tariff? ChiWRONG. You do. The consumer does. The price of most goods in the tech & metal work field are projected to go up around 40% minimum in cost. Nissan has already laid off 9,000 workers in anticipation of the tariffs. A steel company in Pennsylvania has reported that they are striking Christmas bonuses this year in order to stockpile resources before the tariffs take hold & their costs go up. Enjoy your grocery items & every other items you purchase going up in cost.

Now immigrants. Another of Trump’s day one agenda items is the deportation of around 20,000,000 immigrants from The US. A logistical nightmare to say the least, part of this deportation will also include the denaturalization of many immigrants whom the administration also plans to…somehow deport or place into camps. The horrors of that aside, immigrants make up around 50% of the food & manual labor workforce. Without them the literal bottom of the food supply chain barrel & infrastructure barrel falls right out & sweeps the rest of us off with it. The economy will crash & the dollar will be a wash.

Lastly, transgender individuals. The Trump administration wants to inshrine the existence of two genders into the constitution. They also want to force individual to be only able to go by the gender of the sex they were at birth & they want to penalize any & all healthcare workers providing gender affirming care to trans youth. This includes capital punishment for those caught performing gender affirming surgeries on individuals under the age of 18, a practice that isn’t happening anyway.

I’m going to be entirely frank with you all. I’m not very hopeful for the four years going forward. I know there’s another election in two with the midterms but I foresee a whole lot of damage being done before we ever even get the change to get there. I’ve seen a lot of sentiment of “well, you survived the first Trump presidency” going around & I want to remind you all that millions didn’t. Because of his policies, because of his COVID response, millions are now dead & that was with ‘checks & balances’ in place, of which there are now no guard rails for ‘King Trump.’ We have shown this man & his goonies that not only is he above the law as a treasonous, rapist crook, but that it is encouraged. The range & scope of what he will do will increase & things are going to get very bad for a lot of people very quickly.

I’d be lying if I told you all I wasn’t terrified. Not just for Evan & I but for the friends we have who fall into the crosshairs of the Trump administration. I am scared to the point that it sent me to urgent care where we speculate I may have developed an ulcer from stress. These are the policies so many of you voted in favor of. These are the policies that many who call yourselves ‘friend’ or ‘family’ have inflicted upon us & I’m having a really had time seeing how that can be loving in any way. How you can claim to love someone or want what’s best for them & then turn around & vote for someone who hates us. I don’t know how that’s loving, much less how you can classify yourself as someone who is Christian after doing that. Christ said embrace the immigrant, love your neighbor & your enemy, help the needy, feed the hungry, care for the sick, & so many of you who profess that as the anchor for your life went & besmirched that. Not only that, but then you turn around & try to gaslight us into still being connected with you. You claim it takes the bigger person to disagree & still be friends but we are not here disagreeing on how our taxes get spent, we are here disagreeing on who has the right to life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness all for a man who has made his life around swindling & conning his way to the top. I honestly don’t know how they can be justified.

I’m leaving you all here. I am sorry I don’t have a message of hope for you all, but at the moment I am far from hopeful, in fact I am feeling entirely lost. I hope to God I am wrong about all of this. I hope I am, truly, but for now Evan & I wait on bated breath to GTFO before it becomes too late for us to do so. & that is our reality. I’m sorry if this blog was too emotionally driven, I tried my best to keep it grounded but I am at a loss, I am heartbroken & scared & incredibly hurt by those around me who claim love for me but that I know voted against mine & Evan’s livelihood.

-C

Blog: It Must Be Nice

Every two to four years the US likes to turn up the gas on the conversations that happen over family gatherings & across social media platforms. I’ll be the first to admit I kind of enjoy the biannual purge that cleans out my social media followers & friends. It can actually be refreshing from time to time to know where people actually stand. And look, I know a lot of you read that last bit of sentences & had the lovely sentiment of “just because we disagree in the voting booth, doesn’t mean we can’t still be friend” & unfortunately I think we’re way past that societally, morally, & “loving.” I’m sure, once again, me saying that has lost a few of you & some of you have already checked out or clicked out of this blog because you “won’t be a part of divisive politics” which in this day & age is, let’s face it, oxymoronic. If you’re still here & you have a little bit of time I’d love to fill you in on what I mean by all of this & show you why I, & so many who find ourselves living in marginalized groups, feel this way.

Let’s start at what prompted this blog with a little bit of back story. I was on the phone a few weeks ago with someone, whom I shan’t name here because they trusted me enough to speak about their political beliefs openly with me & inadvertently trigger the contents of this blog from the conversation that they & I had. In said conversation we were talking about the upcoming election in which I voiced my support for the Harris/Walz ticket & the general feeling of hope that came with it. We talked policy & things of that nature & the rebuttal of the person I was talking to was very economically driven, as most people are to do when they vote red. They are a well off individual & were upset over the amount of taxes they’d had to pay this year from the sales of an entity that they had worked their lifetime for & which had allow them to retire. I informed them that we hadn’t had a new tax bill since 2019, but their concern was that the incoming potential of a Democratic win would further reduce their earned pile & that which they had prepared to leave for their children once they passed. My response was, what a luxury, that must be nice.

You see while they’re dealing internally with issues like tax policy & inflation (which is mostly a global issue by the way, majority of the rest can be chalked up to corporate greed) I’ve just spent the last several months investigating the deep possibility & probability that had Biden not dropped out, Evan & I would most likely need to expat to another country.

I don’t think that’s over exaggerating either. In fact a lot of people that I know who are members of the LGBTQ+ community, individuals of color, or women, had been doing exactly the same thing to varying degrees. Evan & I had gotten to the point where we were narrowing down countries, looking into visa applications & price, & planning to start the processes for all of these things. Tax policy was honestly the farthest thing from our minds & that’s exactly what I mean when I say “it must be nice.”

It must be nice not to worry about your fundamental rights every election cycle. It must be nice not to fear that the only way that you & your significant other to be together would be by fleeing the country. It must be nice when the things on the ballot for you are not life altering, but instead whether or not you have access to a military grade machine gun. It must be nice not to be worried about whether or not you’re going to be able to afford or attain healthcare. It must be nice to know that certain aspects of who you are as human will not diminish you in society to any degree no matter the outcome. It must be nice not to worry about housing or food or whether or not we will even have a livable planet in 20-30 years. It must be nice to balance the fate of so many, whom you are supposed to love unconditionally as a so called christian, on a vote in favor of your wallet when the alternative could potentially ruin the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. It must be nice.

So no, I don’t mince words, because we are past the point of where an election is simply deciding where & when we spend our tax dollars. We are voting on whether or not those who are different than you; who look different, worship in a different way, love different, have a different tax bracket, have different core beliefs, are worthy of basic human liberties or not. And if you are not someone who can agree with that from a moral stand point, I have little to no interest in anything you say. Because at the end of the day if we can’t agree that all people, no matter their race, gender, background, sexuality, religion, etc. are worthy of life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness equally, without barriers or restrictions that keep them from living a life with no consequence of your own, then you have lost my respect & any integrity that I thought you might have.

This is not about tax policy. This is not about budgets. This is about the livelihood of millions of Americans who don’t fall under the christian, cis-gender, heterosexual, white blanket & I fear that should this election go the way it looked like it was headed just a month or so ago, then we will have lost any & all hope of regaining & rebuilding America as any form of a United States.

-C

Blog: Time Is Once Again Ticking For Tik Tok

If you’re not a frequent user of the clock app, also known as Tik Tok, you may have missed the news that the federal government is once again attempting to ban Tik Tok in The US. If you were already aware of this news then you’ve probably also heard that the reason behind the potential ban apparently relates to “national security” but that reasoning is demonstrably false & we’re going to go over why.

I’m not sure at what point I became a political pundit blog but it seems to be the field of writing I’ve found myself most frequently in of late. Maybe it’s because I, myself am often invested in the world of politics & am a very active advocate against a lot of the BS laws that have been coming out over the last few months. I feel like I’m in the middle of the Trump years again, sharing all the horrible things that I don’t feel are receiving enough attention from the general public, but that’s not why we’re here today. We’re here to talk about the threat that has once again presented against Tik Tok.

As I mentioned above, Tik Tok is on the line in a new bipartisan bill that would force the Chinese based company to sell the United States portion of the app to a US company or face shut down. Sound familiar? Well, it should, because the same thing happened back in 2019. As also aforementioned, the federal government’s reasoning falls under the mustachioed guise of “data mining.” The humorous part about that being that Tik Tok doesn’t collect any more or different data than groups like Meta or Twitter have done for years. We’ll get back to Meta in a minute. The real problem that the feds have with Tik Tok falls into two categories, neither of which should be reasons for the outright ban of the app.

The first of these problems arises from Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s monstrous baby, rigging public opinion one Russian funded post at a time. Zuckerberg is upset that Tik Tok is out performing his two platforms; Instagram & Facebook, the latter of which has seen a fairly consistent decline in users, especially amongst those who embrace Tik Tok, Get Z & Millennials. In an attempt to compete Meta added “Reels” to their platforms which are essentially just Tik Tok rip offs, most times, quite literally. Zuckerberg, in the spirit of free market capitalism, hired GOP targeted PR firm, Targeted Victory, to run a smear campaign against the clock app amongst primarily conservative voters, a base to which has struggled to find a foothold on unfiltered, unregulated Tik Tok. Zuckerberg’s tactics clearly worked as here we are again, looking down the barrel of the same legal gun that we did when Trump found he couldn’t regulate the content of the Tok.

The second part of this is what brings in the bipartisan support for the ban. You see Tik Tok has around one hundred million users. These users, on average, spend about 90 minutes a day using the app. The networks don’t like this. In their minds 90 minutes spent on Tik Tok is 90 minutes you spent not watching CNN, HBO, Fox News, MSNBC, you name a network, I’ll give you a corresponding corporate donor. Additionally these networks are no longer in control of the message being delivered directly to the people, they no longer get to filter or modify their stories to fit the narrative that they want to push. Two recent prime examples of this are the TN’s anti-LGBTQ policies, whose law makers were exposed using Tik Tok for their hypocritical ways (Gov Bill Lee dressed in drag & LT Gov Randy McNally commenting on suggestive photos of twinks) & the train derailment that happened in East Palestine, OH which was barely, if at all covered, by new sites & networks. Tik Tok has repeatedly drawn attention to problems being swept under the rug or misdealing of politicians & the people in charge have grown tired of the wool being removed from the general publics’ eyes.

I know some of you just read those two paragraphs & are immediately discounting what I’ve just told you as conspiracy but I’m reporting exactly what has been said & what is being done. Don’t believe me? Here’s an article about the meta things & here’s a clip of the quiet parts being said out loud at a press briefing regarding the bill (skip to 5:55).

This should be frightening. It should be frightening to all of us because the logic isn’t logicing. The reasons we’re being given for the ban don’t add up. The truth of the matter is that the powers that be don’t like that we can speak to each other unfiltered, they don’t like that we can see each other’s lives, have dialogues, share news that isn’t being covered openly without passing it through the muzzle of the already foreign owned media. I don’t see people, especially younger people, standing by & taking this. I know to a lot of you Tik Tok is just an app but in reality Tik Tok has become the new ultimate exchange of ideas & information. It is digging up parts of the narrative that others would rather have silenced & they don’t like that & the fact that they’re moving so quickly to silence this platform should be alarming to all of you.

As always I hope you all have a great weekend, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: Why No Blogs?

Where have my weekly blogs gone? Why have they disappeared? Well to be fair, they haven’t, I just haven’t been able to post any of the ones I’ve drafted. You see I’m angry, I’m actually beyond angry, I’m livid & it’s not something I can hide any longer.

Every week, for the past whenever I’ve sat down to write a blog. In the past I’ve written on political issues, social issues, recipes, recommendations, details on song construction, etc. I usually try to write what is on my heart for that week to keep things current. That being said, the last few weeks, months, etc. what’s been weighing on my heart is the state of this union & quite frankly, I’m disgusted & I am tired.

I see so many people out here making excuses for the monstrous behavior exhibited by the current administration of the United States. Too many people are okay with the actions of the president & his gooneys, too many people have grown complicit. It seems daily that another new atrocity is unearthed around the Trump administration but a lot of people I know & care about don’t care. At all.

Do you know how hard it is to make something care about something that doesn’t effect them? Do you know how hard it is to try & force people into having an ounce of empathy, into having seeing the what the consequences of their vote have had one marginalized groups. Do you know how infuriating it is to try to show people what is happening just for them to chalk it up to fake news or choose to remain complicit?! It makes it incredibly hard to believe that someone loves or cares about their neighbor when they turn a blind eye to the suffering their chosen leaders inflict upon them.

I’m not going to get into the specifics of Democrats vs. Republicans, I’m not, mostly because the past has shown me that people simply don’t care. Their feelings are easier for them to digest than facts. I know this goes both ways, but we have a wanna be fascist regime in office. I’m not speculating, I’m not hyperbolizing, the things they say are literally fascist/authoritarian rhetoric. I’m someone who has voted on both sides of the aisle BECAUSE I do the research, I look into the problems & see who has the solution that makes the most sense. I do the research. I’m also someone who considers themselves very politically literate so being dismissed as “whatever” “you don't really know” is frankly insulting.

Your black brothers & sisters are crying out for help, your immigrant brothers & sisters are crying out for help, your low income families are crying out for help, your LGBTQ children are crying out for help, your veterans, your Latinos, the Earth we literally all have to live on, are all crying out for help & you’re turning their back on them. All for the sake of an “R” on your ballot. I’m tired of it. Grow a little damn empathy & see how you’re hurting those you claim to love. Open your eyes.

This country WILL NOT survive another four years of this current administration. Do I think the alternative is without fault, hell no, but I see a chance to course correct the destruction & divisiveness of the last four years & I’m taking that, as should you. If you want this nation to continue, if you truly believe the tenets of the Constitution then for the love of God save this Republic.

I’m sorry for the rant but I’m so, so tired. Your neighbors are so, so tired. People are literally out here fighting for their basic human rights & you can’t be bothered to give a shit. Time to own up & open your mind.