"I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down"
Maybe music is driving the culture again.
I've been addicted to the Saudi story.
It's still not at the top of the Fox News website, nowhere near. Instead you've got gossip and anti-Democrat memes. How's a poor boy to find out what's going on in the world?
By listening to pop stars.
And ironically they're all women.
First Taylor Swift, whose previous idea of weighing in was criticizing boys who could not bite back publicly. Suddenly she does a 180 and takes a stand.
Now we've got Rihanna. Now that the right wing press is saying the controversy is over, that NFL ratings have recovered, one of our biggest pop stars is adding gas to the Kaepernick fire, keeping it alive. Way to have a backbone, way to stand up for what you believe in, way to impact the narrative, the aforementioned culture.
And what you're gonna hear is the right wing screaming that she should shut up and go back to where she came from, which in this case is Barbados, but her birthplace does not prevent her from having an educated opinion. And why is it the Republicans keep being anti-immigrant while their children embrace the aliens? This is the same kind of hypocrisy that has these same children embracing African-American culture while their parents are racists and vote against their own interests. Just because parents are dumb, that does not mean children should be too. Hell, these same children are rejecting religion, check the statistics, and in these troubled times I'm willing to give up my faith as long as everybody else does too, what are we living in the Middle Ages, the time of the Crusades? We're still fighting wars over religion? How antiquarian.
But it gets worse Dick Cheney. This is when the past comes back to haunt you. You endorse torture in Guantanamo and then what are you to say when enemies torture us? You don't have ground to stand on. Furthermore, America used to be the world's cop, and the world's higher power, the arbiter of right and wrong. But now the Supreme Court is biased and far from impartial and our President is so busy alienating others in the name of "America First" when the truth is we live in a global economy and if you think otherwise, be prepared to pay $2500 for a flat screen and two grand for a mobile phone. Then again, the chief economist is a TV star, just like the President.
And it all comes down to money. Yup, we've got to stay on the Saudis' good side when a mere pop star who lives on the whim of the people is willing to take a stand and in the process alienate potential customers. But what a beacon! If you don't take a stand, no one can bond to you. Rihanna went from cardboard personality to 3-D instantly. She's thinking about it, she wants to do what's right, as opposed to all those pop stars who took the cash to play for dictators.
And of course if you comb through Rihanna's history I'm sure you'll find flaws, contradictions, but the truth is she is not running for office and she's not a politician. Real people make mistakes, change their opinions, as opposed to Kavanaugh who could not own up to the fact that he liked to drink in school, sometimes to excess. Lying about it is like Justin Timberlake throwing Janet Jackson under the bus after the exposed titty at the Super Bowl. Timberlake claimed innocence, Les Moonves had a vendetta against Jackson, he truly hurt his career.
But now women are doing it for themselves.
We're sick of old white men telling us they know better. About women's bodies. Paying fealty to a racist leader who most people hate.
Meanwhile, Nike takes a risk with Kaepernick and sales go through the roof.
You see people want something to believe in. And they were going along somnambulantly for too long. Then Trump woke them up. And those who triumphed based on sleepiness don't like this, they don't like people taking action, so they resort to character assassination as opposed to arguing on the merits.
Come on, without African-Americans, the NFL folds. But the leaders of the league, afraid of the President, unlike Taylor Swift and Rihanna, have the players working on Maggie's Farm. Sure, it's good money, but should you be treating people like slaves? How about a little dignity? And football players have a lot more impact on the populace than faceless politicians... They keep on wanting to keep athletes and musicians down, as if their vote wasn't as important as those of the corporatists.
It's a new day.
That's right, we haven't had that spirit here since 1969, but it's BACK!
There's something here, and it's becoming very clear.
Women have a voice. And they're sick and tired of being told it's not truthful, that they run on hormones, that they shouldn't make as much, that they should stay home and raise babies.
And in an era of whacked economics, where the corporations get richer and the people get poorer, people with some money are standing up for those who don't have it.
The right wing keeps talking about freedom?
What freedom is that? To kill one of ours on foreign soil and get away with it?
To take away health care from our citizens?
To lower taxes so infrastructure fades? To demonize taxes so our nation goes bankrupt? To let fat cats cheat and pay no taxes at all?
To spread falsehoods so that they can win and we can lose?
No, those days are through. They woke up the sleeping giant.
And you know how this works. The complacent suddenly take action. The misinformed question their preconceptions and change their opinions and...
One individual can change the course of history, never forget it. That's how we got the Arab Spring, look at the work of Steve Jobs.
America is a tinderbox. We're sick and tired and we just cannot take it anymore. We're sick of being oppressed by those with a smaller constituency, who do not have our interests at heart.
They may have the fat cats, but we have the entertainers. And no matter how much they denigrate them, the truth is that's what Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson are, entertainers, it's the same damn world, and the truth is ours are more powerful with a much greater reach than theirs. And expect blowback, all the right wing does is work the refs.
But can they win the game?
Maybe not anymore.
We will see.
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