Living In The Absurd

It has been apparent since January of 2017 when the orange nut job became president that our government was not to be trusted in anything they say or do. We are watching our freedom and institutions die every day before our eyes and nothing is being done about it. The Democrats are a feckless bunch and the Republicans as have been for decades are only out for the money and covering their own asses at the expense of us the people.

Just before the Soviet Union collapsed under Gorbachev the people there no longer believed in their government; they knew it was all absurd lies and so they didn't trust their leaders. After the collapse under Yeltsin all of the industries were gobbled up by oligarchs and power was consolidated into the hands of only a few. This may be what becomes of the United States. What was once unthinkable is now possible and that is that this country is over as we know it.

I'm a fan of the films that BBC documentarian Adam Curtis has been doing for years in trying to make sense of and offer a better understanding of the world we live in today. In one such film, Pandora's Box, he spends an hour discussing what I had written about above in regard to the Soviet Union before the fall. The film like many of his other BBC films is widely available on various video streaming sites such as YouTube.

Everyone in Russia in the early 1980s knew that the managers and technocrats in charge of the economy were using that absurdity to loot the system and enrich themselves. The politicians were unable to do anything because they were in the thrall of the economic theory, and thus of the corrupt technocrats. And above all no-one in the political class could imagine any alternative future.
In the face of this most Soviet people turned away from politics and any form of engagement with society and lived day by day in a world that they knew was absurd, trapped by the lack of a vision of any other way.

Above is an excerpt from a blog post by Adam Curtis in which he writes about the Soviet Union and the absurdity. I suggest reading the entire piece and watching his other films that might be helpful on this subject such as Bitter Lake, HyperNormalisation, and the Mayfair Set. I would suggest watching every film he has ever made.

Don't trust the government and don't trust the corporations either. We are living in the absurd now.

So a very strong word of caution in using Facebook to follow and join protests against the orange one regime. It isn't wise to be listed as a person attending or interested in a protest under your real name. Should the protest turn violent or property should be damaged the lists of names that said they were interested in that protest is readily available to authorities so it is too easy to be caught up and accused of something you never did. If you think this is paranoid then look what happened to protesters at the inauguration and how it relates to Facebook. This would seem like common sense to any rational adult but these protest sites are very risky places especially on Facebook.

Never sign up for a protest on any site under your real name. Never. I'm all for protesting but you have to wise about it in a surveillance state like we live in.

Should Trump fire Robert Mueller massive protests are planned across the country as an immediate response. I think that is a great idea and there is a website just for that occasion. Be very careful when visiting that site because I'm sure it logs IP addresses. I suggest using a proxy for visiting any site that has anything to do with protests. In times like we live in now you can never be too careful if you are going to be politically active.

Related article from The Electronic Frontier Foundation about government surveillance of social media in relation to protests organized on the internet.