theemptyvoice

[theemptyvoice]

Megacorporation clinics, what's next?

When a corporation like Amazon starts offering what should be basic human necessities in place of the actual government, like healthcare via Amazon-run clinics, I get real freaking worried.

I mean, I was already, but it's not helping.

You do not want a corporation in charge of your body, or your body's physical or mental health.

[theemptyvoice]

This Sucks

This sucks.

Let’s get that name-drop out of the way right now. No coy little dance around it, or a big old wink, or a tired old actor looking for a paycheck looking directly into the audience’s soul as they say, “What are we, some sort of [REDACTED]?”

Can the people perpetually screwing up the DCU sue me for just saying Suicide Squad? Screw it. What is this, some sort of Suicide Squad? It’s a bad movie and a worse line and they should remember it, then go tongue Gunn’s butthole clean or whatever.

But that’s not really what this is about, though that can suck too. Despite popular belief (i.e. Donald Trump’s constant deflections back when we had to think about him every day and presumably still now, even now I don’t have to subject my eyes to his neon orange face), multiple things can suck and need fixing. Like the DCU and late-stage capitalism. My aching joints and climate change.

Like just about everything.

But you don’t need some anonymous stranger on the internet telling you the world sucks. You know that, or at least you should. If you don’t, why are you reading this Elon/Bezos/3rd- Culturally-Relevant-Rich-Person? I feel like this comment should be followed by a witty and biting remark about how terrible these people are, but what can I do that their constant need to flee from their mortality and the fact they don’t matter in any meaningful way hasn’t done already?

Run-on sentences, like running away from your problems (that problem just being one big one called the planet Earth).

I’m not bitter, we’re bitter. And angry, and disappointed, and all those other good dad-talk emotions. Hungry, I guess.

Segue. Not the scooter.

The world is having a bit of a… year, you might say. A few years. Riots, protests, climate chance, abortion, trans-rights, gay rights, book banning (isn’t it ironic Fahrenheit 451, THE book about banning & destroying books as a tool of fascism, is banned?), war, tensions rising, fusion energy (I mean, this one’s good), the rise of megacorporations (that’s the Amazon that’s still around), racists, antisemitism, pause for breath, re-commence panic attack, the growing junk field orbiting our planet (did you know about that one?), animals & insects going extinct… the list goes on.

Religious extremists. Sorry, just wanted to throw in that last one. Oh, and healthcare.

And here we are. I’m an asshole writing what probably is starting to sound suspiciously like a manifesto (Don’t worry, I’m not violent. I’m just a pretentious writer). You’re the asshole reading it. Or maybe you’re really nice, I don’t know.

It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Saying that’s probably a bit of an understatement, but that’s the gist. All these problems, no idea what to do, politicians sitting on their asses.

So few things seem to actually happen on a government level, so let’s start there. Politicians. Lazy, corrupt, but I’m being redundant. And unfair. They aren’t lazy.

Lazy people don’t fuck the lower class on a daily basis. Lazy people don’t pass horrible legislation to remove the free lube and condoms to make the fucking more comfortable. Lazy people don’t ship buses of refugees to a political rival’s house so they can try to fuck all the refugees at the same time to make do with time restraints.

Based on these points, you can see it’s not fair to call politicians lazy. Or stupid, for that matter. It’s actually a bit of a problem, because it makes it easy to underestimate them.

Oh, they’re incompetent. Oh, they don’t know what they’re doing.

The people who have a vested interest in money and the law-making ability to pass bills to create more money for themselves know exactly what they’re doing. When a bill gets pasted and you go, that’s dumb (and probably violates some basic principle of human rights), it’s not there because the senate, or the house, or whoever the heck is stupid. It’s because they know what they’re doing, they’re malicious and greedy enough to do it, and they genuinely do not care about you.

Let’s take abortion as an example. Show of hands, who believes Roe v. Wade was overturned on the principle of good Christian virtues or increasing individual state liberties?

Those of you who raised your hands, there’s not a kind way to say this. But there’s a less mean way, and I’ll try that. You’re not stupid for thinking that. You’re not stupid for hoping for and believing in a better version of humanity, and more specifically a better version of the people in power. But you are wrong. I wish you weren’t, in some ways.

Thought exercise: who does it affect the most?

If you said women, that is correct, but it’s not the whole story. Say, for instance, a woman in a state that has vilified (and more legally important, outlawed) abortions wants one. Well, that doesn’t really stop her, does it? She could just drive to a nearby state that allows it… and seriously, let’s not get into the Texas nonsense. Let’s keep it simple for the example.

Easy as pie, right?

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. A for effort.

There are so many reasons why that isn’t possible for a lot of people. Who are the people it isn’t possible for? Who can’t afford to take that time off work or to travel to another state?

And let me beat you off at the pass—I mean cut you off—poverty isn’t a choice. If it was, we’d all be rich.

Like, say, the rich people who made it so that ruling was overturned. The rich people who can afford to circumvent the shitshow they created without repercussion. Those who definitely do not believe in God ™, or practice God’s Virtues ™.

For them, religion is a tool. Believers are pre-primed to trust them and rally to their cause should they say the right few buzzwords and maybe say Hallelujah once or twice.

And because I don’t think religion should be free from criticism, here’s some shade to be thrown your way. Maybe don’t base your whole personality around a couple thousand-year-old book. Or if you must, temper it with the knowledge that it was translated by people with an agenda that doesn’t necessarily agree with yours. Tell you this much, the reason why there was a long stretch of time where only priests were allowed to read the bible and interpret what was God’s Word ™ isn’t because they were the only special little boys ordained by the holy light of literacy.

For those who get upset when Christianity is maligned, easy now. If your religion can’t withstand this basic scrutiny and the playground-level insults I have the capacity for, it ain’t worth much.

Life ain’t worth much these days either. Why doesn’t that bother religious folk more? Stepping partially back on the abortion train, I don’t mean your lip service paid to the Holy Church of Soothing Your Ego. I mean the people here, and now, struggling beside you to survive in a world that has only grown more hostile as of recently.

Now more than ever we need to band together. None of these issues can be solved alone, but the good news is that they can be solved.

Lotta people would have you believe they can’t be. It’s a fun little trick called learned helplessness. In less psychological terms, it’s despair. You feed people a steady diet of horrible news via doomscroll, break up the monotony with entertainment, then slowly watch as their desire to change the world for the better evaporates like your chances with that celebrity you have a parasocial relationship with.

Weaponized helplessness. For those who haven’t learned to be helpless, riot gear will work. Suppress the peaceful protests with violence and let the violent rioters right on in.

It boggles my mind sometimes why those in power aren’t more afraid of that. Just sitting there, terrified of the day the filthy masses below (their words, not mine) realize that society’s all in their heads. Maybe they are terrified of that. Maybe that’s why they crackdown so hard, work day and night to suppress and oppress and defeat. Maybe that’s why a lot of them want to flee to space (spacespacespacespacespace), even though the technology’s not up to snuff yet.

Maybe they are terrified. I hope they are, that thought makes me a little happier.

In this meaningless world, I’ll take it. A little spark of joy keeps you warm for longer than you’d think, ‘specially when it comes at the expense of those screwing you over.

Voice signing out, or whatever. Callsign. Catchphrase.