On Stracist Things

This morning I sat down with my coffee and opened up Facebook to see what is going on in the lives of friends and grab a meme or two which floated by on my feed. Upon it was featured a post with an article regarding “Stranger Things” star Caleb McLaughin who plays Lucas Sinclair. In the brief article, Mr. McLaughin stated he was convinced some of the fans of the show were racist because of a lack of visitors at a convention and the amount of Twitter and Instagram followers he has in comparison to his co-stars. He went on to tell a foreign audience America is just seeped in bigotry. 

Now, for all I know maybe he is right. Maybe there are really are just millions of fans out there of the show who are secretly racist, fast forward his scenes and refuse to follow him on Twitter. I’m not omniscient so I can’t know for sure, but, and just thinking out loud here, perhaps it isn’t the first explanation we can look at regarding his measly, laughable 15 million followers (how embarrassing). I think we just might be able to conclude a few other things to into account.  It is the norm for celebrities nowadays to jump on the victimhood bandwagon, but just for the sake of argument, let’s pretend we don’t immediately look for this as an explanation. What other could there be? Hard to imagine but for the sake of this entry, let us try. 

 

For one, honestly, when it comes to this show, he isn’t the most fascinating character and, hey, that isn’t necessarily his fault. Not being sarcastic. It isn’t. His character simply isn’t the most engaging and other than the pizza guy from the last season, he probably is one of more of the “expendable” (for lack of a better word) characters especially since more and more characters have been added to the show. At the beginning of “Stranger Things” he had more of a presence, but his position has been declining as the show goes on. Again, probably of no fault of his own. It isn’t as if he or Eduardo Franco write the show. Truly, if I had Twitter or the Gram I would follow the actress who plays his sister before I followed him because her character on the show is clearly more interesting.

Argyle (Eduardo Franco) and Erica Sinclair (Priah Ferguson)

Second, and looking beyond “Stranger Things” is the fact many of the people have done projects outside of the show which have gave them more prominence in the public eye. More exposure often equals more followers. Though Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin Henderson, has slightly more followers I believe, because he has a sense of humor and personality which is quite evident outside of the show; apparent in interviews and whatnot. 

 

Gaten Matarazzo

Millie Bobby Brown who plays Eleven was the recent Godzilla films, stared in Enola Holmes (and soon Enola Holmes 2, also on Netfix), and, she is a woman. This may be a shock but it’s probable a few teenage guys out there had a crush. Finally, you have Finn Wolfhard who stared in both parts of “IT” and “Ghostbuster’s Afterlife.” Although Caleb McLaughin has some film credits, the movies haven’t had the audience the others have had.

This celebrity victim mentality stars are “opening up about” is getting out of hand. Bryce Dallas Howard recently bemoaned the horrific experience she had to endure because to star in the last, purportedly awful, Jurassic Park movie, the movie-makers actually were or going to ask her to lose weight. Well, this was a distressing revelation to me. Who knew actors and actresses had to conform their bodies to the roles they are supposed to play? First the Weinstein scandal and now this.

 

I don’t think the occupation really has much room for such complaints. You are casted to act as another person, of which there is a conception in the script or mythos of and what the audience expects, and a person will be cast to fulfill the part. You are also well-paid for your time and effort. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t like Bryce Dallas Howard is a CPA and her dirt bag boss asked her to lose weight. Such a thing would be unacceptable. However, actors and actresses, when it really comes down to it, despite all the talent in the world (and often because of it), are spectacles. Yes, I said it. It is the nature of the job. It can’t be easy to conform into roles, and makeup and costumes while able to add, are unable to remove. Which one of us hasn’t been amazed at any actor who has transformed themselves for a role, particularly those method actors who strain the limits of good health to provide entertainment to the masses? From the sounds of it, most the time the actors who complain of such transformations aren’t called to do a Christian Bale-level morph.

Christian Bale in “The Machinist”

Is it unfair Hollywood works for something as superficial as sex appeal? Maybe. Yet, it is something I have noticed about the entertainment industry though: Sex sells. Hollywood is in the business of making money. Sex appeal works in bringing in money. Therefore, they encourage their actors and actresses, particularly those who are pleasing to the eye to begin with to, well, flaunt it. Maybe it is morally corrupt of our society, I won’t dispute that, but it isn’t a surprise. Yet, actors and actresses always seem surprised. Are they really?

It is so beyond the realm of believability they would be so ignorant, so stretches the imagination, my conspiratorial spidey-senses just can’t but flare up. Much like my hemorrhoids. Imagine if you will, for a moment, a governing body of folks beyond the voting booths. Imagine them standing beyond and behind the politicians, behind the podiums, behind the newscasters and Hollywood boardrooms. Imagine these folks have a dastardly plan, of painting our nation as an evil one for the expressed purpose of replacing division among the economic classes, with divisions of race and gender, or of victim and privileged, in order to create a new Marxist “utopia.” The victim the neo-proletariat and the privileged the neo-bourgeoisie. Imagine for a moment these things classes with the presence of comfortable satisfaction were waning and with it the anger. Imagine this poor utopian concept slipping further and further away from this body’s grasp. It would needs a spark. It needs a fire. It needs and inferno.

A brainstorming session then results in an ingenious plan accompanied by cackling laughter, to paint the privileged as the victim and infiltrate the victimhood school to divide and ramp up anger. Recruits are brought in from the media to press the narrative, and speak of the great pains they are suffering while lining their pocketbooks. Many shake heads, laugh, murmur, and not enough flock to their cause. The infiltrators present day-long propaganda, clogging any media with pre-approved messages and telling them their contentment is a lie and there are people right outside their door waiting to cause them harm. Waiting to objectify them. Waiting to take away their rights. Waiting to abuse them in all kinds of manner. Oh, even if these appear slight and inconsequential, it is really representative of a deeper and more profound darkness in the heart of the oppressors. Even if you have less Twitter followers, it speaks of the deep hatred just waiting in the shadows to spring out, not only supposedly onto the celeb infiltrators, but anyone who can identify with them or those characteristics which ensnare them and demote them from contented to suffering victim.

Oh, but how much more proof is needed! Not enough anger. Too many people going about their lives. Shrugging. A new strategy forms. That's it! More cackling laughter as they release crappy movies with the infiltrators staring, removing the norms from beloved tales so when they don’t make money, which they plan anyway, they can blame it on the oppressor and show the victimhood camp the proof of the ingrained hate within all the privileged. Movie studios and media channels and online platforms spending millions with no expectation of return just to get the message out. Taking the hit for the sake of the illusion.

 

 

On The United Pseu, Pseu, Pseudo-Socialist States of America

Yes! Its time for another round of your favorite game show! Yes, its time to play: "Collins-or-Putin?"




Wow, that bank bailout bill really did our country a whole crap load of good didn't it? I really wish politicians would just shut up for a while, for every time they speak or do anything, it has a disastrous effect on the economy. The very moment the bill passed, the DOW plummeted. When the Treasury Secretary spoke the other day, the DOW plummeted. Perhaps Wall Street realizes what the media won't report, that the free market is now dead and a stuttering Stanley of a socialistic economic dictator has now been thrust into power in the form of the Treasury Secretary Paulson.



I truthfully cannot understand the logic. We had to have seen this coming, you cannot just keep spending money that you don't have, with nothing to back it up, without the bottom falling out. Don't we know this from our own personal lives? Of course we do, because we have learned that if you keep spending money that doesn't exist you are screwed. So now, while all these banks who have spent too much nonexistent money are going into debt, our brilliant government approaches us with a doozy of a plan... to spend more money that doesn't reside in the realm of reality! WTF?!? We need to really be asking the government how long they think they can keep spending air before we crash and burn completely and the public needs to hold them accountable accordingly.

Yes, the news has been covering the current economic crisis, but I think, in reality, they are actually downplaying what happened last week. One of the elements that made this country great has just been taken away from us and more power has just been shoved in the hands of the government. It now has complete control on over half of all home mortgages and loans, and has authority over the credit system.

Sure, it would be a gross mischaracterization to say that we are now in the grips of a soviet form of government, but let us just for one moment consider the ten planks of Marx's communist manifesto shall we? Perhaps it may seem a little familiar. Furthermore, I challenge and encourage everyone to read the whole text of the Communist Manifesto then compare it with our Constitution and see which one rings more bells. The ten planks of Marx's infamous work are:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.

I would like to quickly focus on #5. Read it again, its dead accurate as to what just happened. Not only is government controlling banking institutions and being more involved in the private sector then ever in history, but concerning the monopoly, companies like JP Morgan Chase are creating it by buying out all these banks. Less market competition and more government power. Ah yes, a cornerstone of Marxist philosophy. Furthermore, the government now has the ability to produce its own capital by essentially running a business. This is extremely dangerous and right out of the socialist handbook.

All these planks have American counterparts in forms of legislation and laws that have been passed since the 1920's. This bailout bill just took huge strides forward in bringing socialism into our economy. Our country and its ideals are now rapidly dying and we have nobody to blame but ourselves for letting it happen. The saddest part is when you take into account all the men and women who have shed their blood on American soil and upon the earth abroad to protect our country from socialism and assure its sovereignty. Blood and sweat has now been spilled for naught, for our Republic is no more, and capitalism is withering away.

Its always under the guise of our own protection that our own government takes our rights away, and we just bend over and take it! We won't endure any hardship in our comfortable little lives for the good of our nation and following generations, even when we see that in relation with other peoples around the world we are truly blessed. No, we are selfish bastards, who can't see past their own lives to a greater cause or mission and we hand away our freedoms willfully. If people don't rise up, we deserve what is coming and trust me, its coming. It is on the horizon and if you look, you too can see the danger that lies ahead. The United States of America is soon to decay into another miserable country of the impoverished and we won't have any republican, democrat or independent to blame. No, fellow citizens of the United Socialist States of America, the blood will be on our own hands.

On The Questioning of Religion in Politics

The Pew Research center just came out with a poll stating that 52 percent of people think that in social and political matters, religion should just keep out. I am shocked that the number is so high, especially when living in an age of “tolerance.” I don’t care whether or not you believe or don’t believe in Jesus, Buddha, Allah or Ganesha, what this comes down to is the danger that our very freedoms, that this country was founded, on will be at stake. If these numbers grow any larger than there will truly be a push for this, but at the expense of sacrificing what it is that makes this country great.

When Americans push for freedom in the world, within our never ceasing campaign for democracy, what are the two principles are at the core of the freedoms that we represent? Above all else, we press onward for the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion. This is by no mere coincidence or accident, rather we see that it is from these two that democracy and all other principles we hold sacred are derived. Yet, despite this righteous effort, which nobody seems to have an issue with, the Pew study includes statements such as: “A narrow majority of the public says that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of political matters and not express their views on day-to-day social and political matters.” I really hope I am not the only one who sees the extreme danger in this type of thinking.

We encourage these things in other countries, but when it comes to our own we try and hinder them? Doesn’t this seem a little schizophrenic on a national scale? Once we start controlling people from participating or interacting in social or political matters due to their religion, we take on a principle of Marxism and grow closer to a socialist/communistic government where those in authority control the minds of the people, their deeds and their capital.

Sure, we may not like what everyone says, and it may at times even really piss us off, but it doesn’t mean that a person doesn’t have a right to say or express such things. People need to suck it up if they get offended, because do you actually think that it will stop at religion? Absolutely not! Our freedoms in a lot of ways are a series of checks and balances that keep the government from going out of control. With the loss of our freedoms, there is a loss of control or influence over the government, and we will one day find ourselves under the watchful eye of an oppressive dictator. We will look back wishing we didn’t forsake what we had, yet we will have nobody to blame but ourselves.