I just started in my writing journey. I am obsessive, but to a fault at times. But my inspiration is rooted in the sense of Camaraderie I get when I read what you and Michael write about. The dire need for what you offer is what compels me. I may not have a college education. I may just work in construction for a living, but it’s the exposure to my fellow workers that made me realize how much is left unsaid, and how much is hidden from them. “Someone’s gotta do it, I guess.”
Ride the writ-lit (lightening) until you are too tired to spit or shit.
My bit conceals a deep desire to interrogate our Empire (two-party corrupt oligarchy) as a metaphor for abuse; whereby the father is the paternal abuser (historic Republican who looks like Newt Gingrich) distant, disgusting, and unable to control his compulsions while the mother of the empire is the false protector (Barb Bush/Hill Clinton)who looks the other way to abuse, justifying, reveling in the spectacle of power and careerism. They work as a team, as do their corporate benefactors, intelligence social clubs, and hyper-capitalist world domineers parishioners. This is a multigenerational story to write - one born in the end of the second WW (operation paperclip, gladio, and nuclear war).
The abusive period started to really get bad before I was born during the 60's assassinations, chemical testing (Mont St Esprit, Korea, Nevada and St Louis), McCarthyite obsessions, and the intervention in sovereign nation's leadership (Iran, Guatemala, Congo, Indonesia, Egypt, Hammarskjold with the UN, and the entire Southern cone of S America by the 70s). And then, the empire went nice (Reagan, Bush Clinton) with slick PR and stealth financialization (de-regulation, privatization, and greed is good neoliberalism) --- Forcing what Bill Black (former S&L regulator) to write the definitive book on financial abuse --- "The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One".
This is when the abuse really took a solid form --- credit cards, changing usury laws, rebounding from high interest rates (using Greenspan as a god-like guru) to pound inflation into the ground while stagnating wages left workers with less and less. College and healthcare costs escalated. People in our country were told fairy tales about how it is in the world --- creating a generation of people who had "experiential dissonance". A generation wasting away on drug deaths (crack, cocaine), cancer admissions from industry (cigarettes --- Altria 2 step), sexual viruses (AIDS) and the social crack back at the population. And the media kept its secrets too (Operation Mockingbird) outed in 1978 by Carl Bernstein.
Well, we are 35 years from that time period before the Soviet Union collapsed and the war machine needed new enemies to demonize and profit off of (we've had Asian/Middle East/African/Cuban baddies to police) and the US still sees itself as the World's Empire (calling itself a democracy - a joke to many who live in Florida named Chad or saw the long night of the 1000 swords take old Colonel Sanders out to the woodshed right before South Carolina). Klobushar still telling the same stump speech in a Sysphisian nightmare. Little Pete running around covering his tracks as a next generation of scumbag politician moves to power abusers.
Fast forwarding to 2023, it is quite shocking the revelations coming Taibbi et al on the CoVid documents and the PR. It makes the systemic abuse impossible not to see. It makes us question the JFK/RFK/MLK assassinations in a new light (as Malcolm's X and Fred Hampton's murders are pretty much understood at this point). We re-visit the wars in Iraq, re-imagine the catastrophic pain caused on 9/11, and remember the exact details of the financial crisis in minute details (foreclosures, robo-signing banks, foamed runways, and deep institutional rot).
So, it probably makes sense that I am on Matt's substack writing about the things that cause me most pain - because he was an inspiration for me when I was just beginning to ask the question --- Is my country a serial abuser (politically, ethically, experientially, financially, legally, and spiritually)? So many people justifying our world's reserve currency status/nuclear weapons as the law of the jungle. And even more trying to protect us citizens with myths of this country that bear no resemblance to ur actions. We are abusive everywhere around the world. We abuse our own - look at the videos of Kensington in Philly with whacked out drug addled zombies barely able to walk. Look at the sacrifice zones (Hedges - Immokolee, Camden, Pine Ridge, and Appalachia) that were once a few but now reside in almost every major city in our country).
They have tortured in our name. They have jailed or murdered whistleblowers in our name. They have drone killed women and children in our name. Overthrown governments (still to this day) and the former head of the CIA - Mike Pompeo bragged about how it felt. No one told me to write this tonight, but I have been thinking about this for at least a decade if not.
We are a plastic society, bent on trying to celebrate a fiction of the US - a Barbie and Ken version of an expensive, powerful ideal where we cannot imagine ourselves not winning. What would happen to that rugged individualism, tireless work ethic, and the American spirit if we weren't using 45% of the world's resources each year with a world population nearing 12%. We are poor losers and have failed to recognize that we've already lost (BRICS, Ukraine, MSM, and Climate). Abusers do not take very well to idea of having to own up to what we/they did (we'd rather have an obscure economist 'externalize' this on to some unsuspecting population in some sick game of ecological Superfund 52 card pick up for the poor and unwittingly.
No, I write tonight because I am tired of holding these thoughts inside of me - swirling aimlessly coming to a synapse near you. I am tired of the dying empire, the interregnum within --- whereby real honest dialogue is aborted - not allowed to be born while the Empire clearly is crumbling Tucker by Carlson.
I write tonight, because I want the World to acknowledge that we are a country born of abuse, replicating it like pancreatic cancer into every imperial crevice. School shootings, fentanyl overdoses, tik tok challenges ending in death, texting/driving, and mass psychosis. Our politicians/elite paymasters are indifferent (the opposite of love and trust). Our enemies know we are dying and are building alliances. Our people are raging against each other on highways, in stores, and on the internet. These are classic signs of abusers - the abused. It feeds upon itself.
The first step to any crisis -- is to be honest and name it. Tonight I write this as someone who waited too long 2023 to write --- UNITED STATE OF ABUSE. It needs to stop. We need to stop the cycle of abuse at every turn in the empire to even have a chance at a reasonable outcome for the next generation. This much is clear to me. We are going to have to see people differently and sort out those that refuse to acknowledge their abuses. By virtue of living in this country, we all are culpable.
Love this post. I’d also love to see a post about what your writing process looks like. Do you do one draft and give it to the editor? Sometimes, I find that editing my work (before giving it to an editor) is harder than writing the first draft. Does it get easier over time?
So appreciate “your voice” (aka. presence), one of a minority “crying in the wilderness”. You are encouraging. I am not a writer; I will never be published, but that is beside the point! Peace & Love.
I DO love what you say here, but alas! I am long past that point in my life where when Inspiration cuddles up to me beneath that ratty blanket on the floor at night—'cause I can't afford a bed, a mattress, or even a sleeping bag—I stay warm. 😀
Do you know that H.G. Wells short story, "The Door in the Wall"?
Love this advice! I've found recently the more I write what I want, the freer my soul feels, and thus the more I want to write. I may have few subscribers but I know they are getting the real me...and so am I.
Finally, 'I plan to' has shifted to 'this morning I'm writing where I left off yesterday'. Inspiration and focus just dropped by for cake and ice cream when candles covered every inch of last year's cake. Just in time. ;-)
I love it when a headline includes the punchline. I ‘ve written for fifty years, but I still consider myself an amateur. I ‘ve had a couple of short books of poems published. Now that I’m old, it’s the most fun I have!
Yeah well I wish, but I tried to warn you, even Musk, who I tried to give a heads up but did not deter him one bit, went on ahead and paid that 45B pound of flesh or human excrument, whichever way you want to look at it... You all are now heroes. Now you have to deal it. Good luck with that my friend. It’s forever ;)
I just started in my writing journey. I am obsessive, but to a fault at times. But my inspiration is rooted in the sense of Camaraderie I get when I read what you and Michael write about. The dire need for what you offer is what compels me. I may not have a college education. I may just work in construction for a living, but it’s the exposure to my fellow workers that made me realize how much is left unsaid, and how much is hidden from them. “Someone’s gotta do it, I guess.”
Same goes for making art or playing music.
Yep. I can't write for beans, but these posts are still useful for visual art.
Ride the writ-lit (lightening) until you are too tired to spit or shit.
My bit conceals a deep desire to interrogate our Empire (two-party corrupt oligarchy) as a metaphor for abuse; whereby the father is the paternal abuser (historic Republican who looks like Newt Gingrich) distant, disgusting, and unable to control his compulsions while the mother of the empire is the false protector (Barb Bush/Hill Clinton)who looks the other way to abuse, justifying, reveling in the spectacle of power and careerism. They work as a team, as do their corporate benefactors, intelligence social clubs, and hyper-capitalist world domineers parishioners. This is a multigenerational story to write - one born in the end of the second WW (operation paperclip, gladio, and nuclear war).
The abusive period started to really get bad before I was born during the 60's assassinations, chemical testing (Mont St Esprit, Korea, Nevada and St Louis), McCarthyite obsessions, and the intervention in sovereign nation's leadership (Iran, Guatemala, Congo, Indonesia, Egypt, Hammarskjold with the UN, and the entire Southern cone of S America by the 70s). And then, the empire went nice (Reagan, Bush Clinton) with slick PR and stealth financialization (de-regulation, privatization, and greed is good neoliberalism) --- Forcing what Bill Black (former S&L regulator) to write the definitive book on financial abuse --- "The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One".
This is when the abuse really took a solid form --- credit cards, changing usury laws, rebounding from high interest rates (using Greenspan as a god-like guru) to pound inflation into the ground while stagnating wages left workers with less and less. College and healthcare costs escalated. People in our country were told fairy tales about how it is in the world --- creating a generation of people who had "experiential dissonance". A generation wasting away on drug deaths (crack, cocaine), cancer admissions from industry (cigarettes --- Altria 2 step), sexual viruses (AIDS) and the social crack back at the population. And the media kept its secrets too (Operation Mockingbird) outed in 1978 by Carl Bernstein.
Well, we are 35 years from that time period before the Soviet Union collapsed and the war machine needed new enemies to demonize and profit off of (we've had Asian/Middle East/African/Cuban baddies to police) and the US still sees itself as the World's Empire (calling itself a democracy - a joke to many who live in Florida named Chad or saw the long night of the 1000 swords take old Colonel Sanders out to the woodshed right before South Carolina). Klobushar still telling the same stump speech in a Sysphisian nightmare. Little Pete running around covering his tracks as a next generation of scumbag politician moves to power abusers.
Fast forwarding to 2023, it is quite shocking the revelations coming Taibbi et al on the CoVid documents and the PR. It makes the systemic abuse impossible not to see. It makes us question the JFK/RFK/MLK assassinations in a new light (as Malcolm's X and Fred Hampton's murders are pretty much understood at this point). We re-visit the wars in Iraq, re-imagine the catastrophic pain caused on 9/11, and remember the exact details of the financial crisis in minute details (foreclosures, robo-signing banks, foamed runways, and deep institutional rot).
So, it probably makes sense that I am on Matt's substack writing about the things that cause me most pain - because he was an inspiration for me when I was just beginning to ask the question --- Is my country a serial abuser (politically, ethically, experientially, financially, legally, and spiritually)? So many people justifying our world's reserve currency status/nuclear weapons as the law of the jungle. And even more trying to protect us citizens with myths of this country that bear no resemblance to ur actions. We are abusive everywhere around the world. We abuse our own - look at the videos of Kensington in Philly with whacked out drug addled zombies barely able to walk. Look at the sacrifice zones (Hedges - Immokolee, Camden, Pine Ridge, and Appalachia) that were once a few but now reside in almost every major city in our country).
They have tortured in our name. They have jailed or murdered whistleblowers in our name. They have drone killed women and children in our name. Overthrown governments (still to this day) and the former head of the CIA - Mike Pompeo bragged about how it felt. No one told me to write this tonight, but I have been thinking about this for at least a decade if not.
We are a plastic society, bent on trying to celebrate a fiction of the US - a Barbie and Ken version of an expensive, powerful ideal where we cannot imagine ourselves not winning. What would happen to that rugged individualism, tireless work ethic, and the American spirit if we weren't using 45% of the world's resources each year with a world population nearing 12%. We are poor losers and have failed to recognize that we've already lost (BRICS, Ukraine, MSM, and Climate). Abusers do not take very well to idea of having to own up to what we/they did (we'd rather have an obscure economist 'externalize' this on to some unsuspecting population in some sick game of ecological Superfund 52 card pick up for the poor and unwittingly.
No, I write tonight because I am tired of holding these thoughts inside of me - swirling aimlessly coming to a synapse near you. I am tired of the dying empire, the interregnum within --- whereby real honest dialogue is aborted - not allowed to be born while the Empire clearly is crumbling Tucker by Carlson.
I write tonight, because I want the World to acknowledge that we are a country born of abuse, replicating it like pancreatic cancer into every imperial crevice. School shootings, fentanyl overdoses, tik tok challenges ending in death, texting/driving, and mass psychosis. Our politicians/elite paymasters are indifferent (the opposite of love and trust). Our enemies know we are dying and are building alliances. Our people are raging against each other on highways, in stores, and on the internet. These are classic signs of abusers - the abused. It feeds upon itself.
The first step to any crisis -- is to be honest and name it. Tonight I write this as someone who waited too long 2023 to write --- UNITED STATE OF ABUSE. It needs to stop. We need to stop the cycle of abuse at every turn in the empire to even have a chance at a reasonable outcome for the next generation. This much is clear to me. We are going to have to see people differently and sort out those that refuse to acknowledge their abuses. By virtue of living in this country, we all are culpable.
Fantastic post! I saved it! Thank you.🙏
Damn! That’s excellent!
Great piece, Matt. I’ve heard, “you don’t create inspiration, you capture it. “
Great post! Also, don't let SEO run your life!
Ha, ain’t that the truth!
Love this post. I’d also love to see a post about what your writing process looks like. Do you do one draft and give it to the editor? Sometimes, I find that editing my work (before giving it to an editor) is harder than writing the first draft. Does it get easier over time?
Right. My "first draft" is usually the tenth.
So appreciate “your voice” (aka. presence), one of a minority “crying in the wilderness”. You are encouraging. I am not a writer; I will never be published, but that is beside the point! Peace & Love.
I DO love what you say here, but alas! I am long past that point in my life where when Inspiration cuddles up to me beneath that ratty blanket on the floor at night—'cause I can't afford a bed, a mattress, or even a sleeping bag—I stay warm. 😀
Do you know that H.G. Wells short story, "The Door in the Wall"?
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/456/456-h/456-h.htm
That's kinda my Inspiration trope.
How do those Russians always seem to make sense even with all that alcoholic exchange? I'm chasing the wolves, Matt!
Love this advice! I've found recently the more I write what I want, the freer my soul feels, and thus the more I want to write. I may have few subscribers but I know they are getting the real me...and so am I.
Finally, 'I plan to' has shifted to 'this morning I'm writing where I left off yesterday'. Inspiration and focus just dropped by for cake and ice cream when candles covered every inch of last year's cake. Just in time. ;-)
OMG! I know u are not discussing anything “RUSSIAN”, God forbid!Surely this will contribute to the minions accusing u of being a lackey of Putin!! 😂
Moral confusion is real... And it separates the accurate writers from the great ones.😜
I love it when a headline includes the punchline. I ‘ve written for fifty years, but I still consider myself an amateur. I ‘ve had a couple of short books of poems published. Now that I’m old, it’s the most fun I have!
Yeah well I wish, but I tried to warn you, even Musk, who I tried to give a heads up but did not deter him one bit, went on ahead and paid that 45B pound of flesh or human excrument, whichever way you want to look at it... You all are now heroes. Now you have to deal it. Good luck with that my friend. It’s forever ;)
I am having trouble subscribing to Substack (willing to pay).
Great piece. We are creatures of The Spark of Creativity. Going with that flow is far more natural.