People have asked me to weigh in on this bs with Chris Rock and Will Smith.
I wanted to avoid saying anything. Not my circus, not my clowns. But if you are insisting, here it is:
“Clicks and ad sales. Nothing but spectacle. Slaps and Circuses. Lowest ratings in years. Now an explosion of bullshit capable of keeping the Oscars and their lame-assed committee in the news for weeks. A veritable slap to wake up the sleeping giant of advertising. I am not saying it was staged. But I am saying it was timely as all fuck for this suffering industrial lynchpin of the rich promoting the rich so they can continue to get richer. ”
You now know all you need to know about my perspective. But if you want to understand. If your need to know has intensified, well then here is the extended answer:
Oh my God, they are grown and if they want to throw their careers away acting like children in a playground, that is their right. I wouldn’t do it because in my mind, I like being rich and powerful and able to shop with impunity. But I understand, fools can be found in all walks of life.
There was no honor to be found, no heroics to be measured, shames to be expounded upon and in the end, this should have been handled after hours, after the event, and after what should have been one of the greatest moments in Will Smith and Samuel Jackson’s careers.
There. I have said it.
All of this other conversation about whether it affects how Black men live (it does) the tendency of whites to consider this and rationalize this kind of violence as the norm (it does) about whether Black men have felt routinely without power to defend their families in this society (they have been) and whether Black men get to protect their families when they are imperiled (they should, if they are actually in danger).
Will this destabilize society, causing the collapse of the space-time continuum, destroying American culture and everything it stands for?
Not a chance.
The last four years of Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson and the GOP Shenanigans as well as the poorly-handled but soon to be profitable scourge of the Coronavirus have already destroyed everything this country could have stood for decades.
Will Smith and Chris Rock are little more than a tawdry pair of black cherries on an ice cream sundae of media-obsessed, mediacentric, nationalized shame.
It shouldn’t have happened and with all that happening in the world, it shouldn’t have been relevant.
But because people are so distressed with the status quo, THEY have decided this IS important, far in excess of things which are more significant and less easily teased apart.
It has become a cathartic substitute allowing people who are problematic in almost every way to opine upon something which can fill the minutes but not the mind. Things they can feel confident they understand, but are truly without a clue, regarding the world around us which is filled with misdirection, obfuscation, and outright lies from the people who claim to be leaders in our society.
There are events from tycoons, braggarts and oligarchs to lifetime appointees to the Supreme Court (and their wives fomenting insurrection).
Events such as:
• Trump’s Burner Phone (a burner phone like drug dealers use?)
• Trump’s Involvement in the Insurrection
• The Insurrection at the Capitol building
• The imperiled democracy the Insurrection attacked
• The partisan bickering, divide and slash and burn politics
• The ensuing culture war against minorities, gays and women using political posturing to undermine the opportunities of said groups in the creation of laws such as the “Texas Abortion Law” which puts a bounty on women getting abortions, Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay Law” or the Texas “Anti-trans” legislation being replicated nationwide.
• The War in Ukraine
• The stability of the head of Russia
• The failure of the armies of Russia
• The implied nuclear threat by the head of Russia
• The testing of nuclear capable missiles from Korea
• The attention-seeking behavior of Kim Jun Un
• The collapse of order in the Middle East
• The issues regarding oil and the world’s economies
• The continued spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant BA.2
• The millions of people who have died from the pandemic.
• The muted response from antivirals due to mutation
• The reinfection rate from the coronavirus
• The failed responses from governments worldwide regarding their coronavirus response
• The millions of people who have died for lack of medical opportunities lost due to hospitals being closed to normal medical services
• The millions of people who are still unvaccinated.
• The million of people those people will infect (again).
• The half a million nurses lost to the industry.
• The tens of thousands of doctors who will quit before it’s over.
• The collapses of the medical system as you think you know it.
• The rising inflation rate
• The rising corporate profit rates blamed on inflation
• The actual reason corporations are profitable: greed
• The underpowered and understaffed IRS
• The fact poor people are targeted by the IRS
• The fact poor people are carrying the tax burden of the nation while the rich hide their money offshore
• The fact the IRS is too understaffed to properly assess the taxes of the rich in any significant fashion and thus such individuals pay far less than they should.
• The fact the most powerful corporations in this nation have paid NO taxes in recent years and this is unlikely to change since the IRS was effectively neutered under Trump.
• The United States military is expecting an increase in funding this year to offset highest inflation rate in decades.
• The US military is already getting $780 billion at last check.
• Meanwhile the pandemic relief funds have not been approved by Congress, leaving millions without support, without tests, and without recourse if those funds don’t get approved.
• Millions of people became homeless during the pandemic.
• Millions of people remain living in precarity regarding food, income and shelter.
• Last and certainly not least: the continued and existential threat of climate change which if our treatment of the coronavirus is any indication, will be ignored until it cannot be fought and then we will be told to: Learn to live with it. (See: Coronavirus Solution, already in progress.)
Do I need to go on? There are so many more important things to be worried about than whether two rich guys, black or white, are slapping each other as a form of performance art in a nation completely blind to a host of other more important things they should be thinking about but can only lazily entertain one stupid thought at a time.
For about two weeks.
Maybe World War III can get on the billet sometimes soon.
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