Not Without Incident: Questioning Big Brother's Platitudes

I initially planned on writing a third part of my War on Trump series, going into detail about the weak case outlined in the now released indictment and the immorality of former and currently serving government officials, and the immorality of the permanent regime in Washington, however, I have a couple of other commitments that I need to focus on for at least the next couple of weeks. As you have probably noticed, I changed my website layout, as I feel this is more appropriate for my blog as it’s moving towards more of a magazine format.

My commitments are my thesis project, which I will dedicate all my writing and reading energy to over the next couple of weeks. This will allow me to produce the best possible draft, and my mind is constantly all over the place, so focusing my writing energies on one project is critical for me as this is important for when I take my next step in my educational journey.

I am also working on completing a TEFL course, as I plan to teach English in Asia or the Middle East when I complete my studies here in Australia. My goal is to complete this course by the end of May, when my semester ends, however, with my first thesis draft completed, I will be able to manage posting and working on this TEFL course.

I will during this time publish podcast episodes going over what I’ve written over the past month and some of the chaos consuming US and Western politics. My podcast will follow a new format. It will begin with exhibit A, a discussion about a major event in American politics or foreign affairs, and then there will be a backstage portion that goes over one of my posts in a bit more detail, and finally I will conclude with a couple of news items of interest to me. I will also share my podcast on Facebook.

From then on, I will continue posting once or likely three times a week, as I will still be reading, keeping up with the news and podcasts, while making notes and adding to essays I am presently working on and conceiving new essays.

What I will publish next are, as mentioned, the next essay in my War on Trump series, and probably another after that, a series on Polite Tyranny, a couple more essays on Julian Assange, more on the Reign of the Illiberal Liberals series, and of course, completing the long form review of Carlos Lozada’s book on literature on the Trump era. What’s left are a post on his chapter discussing immigration, and a conclusion reflecting on the previous 7 posts and my concluding thoughts on the book and where it belongs in relation to analysis of the Trump presidency.

There will also be a few new series. The first is a series dedicated to defining terms and concepts that I use in my essays, like Western exceptionalism, illiberal liberals, and the permanent regime. These are not my own inventions, but I do use them in a particular way that is unique to my writing and argumentation. I will also discuss concepts like the rules-based order, universal human rights, and hate speech, as I have my own view on them and when I use them in my work, I’m doing so in a critical manner. This is not to be confused with a critical theory approach, as aside from a handful of interesting thinkers, much of critical theory to me, both in my current studies in International Relations and my previous studies in Literature, is not critical in any real sense and only serves ruling class/establishmentarian viewpoints. I will write an essay or collection of essays elaborating on this point.

Another two series I will be working on are not so much series as they are a new area of focus. These are hip hop and film analysis.

For my first essays on film analysis, I will be looking at films that illustrate the depths of despair in the US and the West. I will start with Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes, Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and David Mackenzie’s Hell or High Water. These will directly relate to my analysis of political and societal decay in my other work. In other film analysis, I will focus on other aspects of films, which have always been a deep interest of mine. Examples are Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park and Adam Simon’s Carnosaur, both now 30 years old.

In hip hop analysis, I will undertake work that I was going to do had I done my graduate studies in English instead of IR. This consists of reading hip hop songs and albums as texts. I will do reviews of new albums as well as in depth analyses of classics.

I would like to finish this announcement by touching on my personal politics and my political journey, which have changed dramatically since I left home and started reading even more than I already did when I was back home in Canada.

It was my dad who initially got me interested in film and politics. He would read the newspaper every morning and for a long time I dismissed the importance of reading the news and paying attention to current affairs. It wasn’t until Trump’s election that I developed a mild interest. I still remember him showing me on his phone that Trump had won the electoral college.

When I began taking electives in political science in my first degree I started becoming more interested in politics. I wish I listened to my dad earlier and started reading the news much earlier in my life.

My personal politics have shifted all over the place, but I think if I had to pin them down, I would say on the surface I am on the left. Much of my analysis and my reference library would seem to suggest that, however, much of what I put forth seems to me to be common sense.

To me, it’s common sense that the divide we face is not right versus left or conservative versus liberal, it’s the ruling class versus the plebs, and I am one of the plebs. I am not a conservative, nor am I a liberal, as I think both are bankrupt ideologies, and are no more than tribal signals. If I am anything, I am an anarchist.

To me, my political affiliation is not of crucial importance. The strength of my arguments and writing is, and this blog is meant to grow these.

I understand that many of my positions may be uncomfortable or that they may make people indignant, like my argument that Taiwan is not a country, and it is not worth going to a world war over, or that people like Obama and the Clintons are more horrible and destructive than Trump, but from what I see, read, and hear, this is the truth.

I could parrot establishment lines of thinking, as that would invite more nodding along in agreement. As my dad told me many times growing up, saying and doing the right thing will always be harder than going along with the crowd, and that’s what makes it worth it. There is no shame in being or thinking differently. As Rosa Luxemburg said, the point of freedom of speech and expression is the freedom to think and express oneself differently. Despite the appeal of what Plato referred to as ‘the noble lie’, there is nothing more noble than telling the truth in a circumstance where it has been rendered illegitimate and to utter the truth is akin to treason.