That's the part people miss when they talk about control. They imagine it as something imposed from outside. But the most durable form of control doesn't need enforcement. It reshapes what feels reasonable to expect. When you speak and nothing happens enough times, your mind adjusts. It recalibrates the cost benefit calculation. Expression becomes something you do for yourself, not something you do to affect reality. And once that shift happens, silencing becomes unnecessary. You can talk all you want.
vs. Pete:
But the ground is clearly shifting because all of us together have been doing the work of shifting it: things that can sound old-fashioned protesting, calling out members of Congress, even just speaking up in person or online, all of it is adding up into an accelerating change in the power dynamics of this country.
That first video (Silent East made it, for those who want more, and there is. I’ve got him on my favorites now) is the clearest explanation of what is happening to us since Cleek’s Law hit the Top Ten. Maybe even since Franz Kafka sat in his closet with his hanging clothing hiding his face and addressed his ideas to his compatriots gathered his in his room, who rolled on the floor with laughter because everything he said precisely described what was happening, AND what was coming to Europe in a few short years.
I used to say over at OBWI that I hoped for a National Shut The Fuck Up Month, incuding for me, just to clear the airwaves, all of the broadcast frequencies, including those transmitted into space of this incessant and now fully saturated with distortion human yammering, especially from mouth moving Americans (I have been told lately by numerous friends that they want to start a podcast and I ask for what?.To add your pointless voice to the deafening meaningless fully miked and headphoned chorus of the podcasting influencers (God, I hate all of them) and content creators (even pornstars call themselves that)?
How ’bout shut up. The universe is going to finally clap its big hand over our mouths, I hope.
My favorite comment under that video reads “capitalism neutralises critique by simply turning it into another product to sell. Rage Against the Machine concert tickets are $500.”
Exactly. We’re tapping our feet to our ultimate catastrophe. Those smoke effects at Rage’s concerts are napalm, sold to us as the smell of a beautiful morning.
The same perverted Christian Republican subhuman American Conservative God that “gave” us guns is shooting us dead now. The gun is not just warming; it’s barrel is as blistering hot as happiness.
Thanks cleek. But what’s next as Silent East’s silence falls over our deaf ears?
indeed. Silent East is a very interesting channel. a perspective we don’t see much, but probably should.
Cleek, I wish your wife was a mouse too.
Take care, my friend.
thanks, JT